(ORDO NEWS) — The neck of mamensisaurs reached 15 meters in length – several times longer than that of giraffes. It was not easy to keep her on weight and protect her from fractures.
To do this, there were numerous air cavities and additional protective processes in the cervical vertebrae of dinosaurs.
Sauropods were the largest and one of the most successful groups of dinosaurs. They appeared in the Triassic period and existed until the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction.
The secret of their success is largely associated with an incredibly long neck, which allowed them to eat without unnecessary movements, biting through the vegetation over a large area and height, and not expend too much energy on it.
Perhaps the large surface of the neck also facilitated the removal of heat from the huge body.
The neck reached a record length in mamensisaurs , which were described as early as the middle of the last century.
And in the late 1980s, fossils of the species Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum were discovered in China : part of the skull, several vertebrae and ribs.
Remains of such gigantic dimensions are not preserved in their entirety, and based on the fragments found then, scientists estimated the neck of M. sinocanadorum at 10-11 meters.
However, a new analysis conducted by paleontologists from Stony Brook University (USA) showed that its length could be a record 15.1 meters.
This is more than six times more than that of the longest-necked animals of our time – giraffes.
To find out how M. sinocanadorum supported the weight of such a long neck, scientists examined their vertebrae using computed tomography.
The work showed that these bones consisted of 69-77 percent air cavities, which made them noticeably lighter. It would seem that such light bones should be especially prone to fractures.
But this was prevented by the special geometry of the vertebrae: they had powerful cervical ribs – processes that diverged to the sides, which strengthened the entire structure.
“A biomechanical analysis of the neck of Mamensisaurus shows that it could only rise at a relatively small angle from the horizontal, only 20-30 degrees.
However, even with such an inclination, due to the extreme length of the neck, the head of the animal could reach a height of 7.5 to ten meters above the ground, allowing it to feed on the foliage of trees, ” said British paleontologist Paul Upchurch, one of the authors of the new work.
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