From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Holden Numbering
Date: 3 Sep 92 01:05:34 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <2882@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
|In article <953@tdat.teradata.COM*, swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen) writes:
| 
|* but I think *birds* do things differently, and I do not know that
|* I have ever seen a bird laying down to sleep (sitting on a nest is not for
|* sleeping, it is for uncubating eggs).
|* And, remember, dinosaurs are more closely related to birds than to mammals,
|* so the avian type of sleep is more likely to be relevant than mammalian.
|* I do think the idea that sauropods never lay down warrants serious
|* consideration, Warren had that right.
|* Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
|
|Every part of the above is either dubvious or completely wrong other than
|for the spelling of the name (Friesen), and at this point,I'm not sure whether
|I'd trust the guy that far.

Oh it's right enough.  Meine Familie kommt aus Friesland im Nederland,
das meint 'Friesen'.
[Sigh, my German is rather rusty, I suspect there are a number of mistakes
in the above, but it should be comprehensible].

|Birds sleep "standing" because they have a tendon which goes over the back-
|facing joint of their legs, keeps their legs comfortably suspended at a sort
|of a half bend, and keeps their claws tightly clomped around the limb or
|whatever with no effort on their part.  

This is the physical adaption which supports the sleeping erect, it is
*not* 'why' they do it.  That is an evolutionary question - a matter of
adaptation.

|This wouldn't work for a sauropod or any straight-legged creature or any
|creature with knees facing forwards for obvious reasons, and it doesn't even
|work for an ostrich.

I suspect that the graviportal structure of a sauropods legs would tend to
have a similar 'stiffening' effect, so I do not think your argument holds.

And the more bird-like dinosaurs almost certainly did have the same tendon,
even the 5-7 ton tyrannosaurs.  So even your guess that the tendon would
snap is questionable.  Like other features, such things tend to scale
allometrically, and thus adjust for changing sizes with changing ratios.
|
|Dinosaurs were mostly of two basic types, birdlike which included even the
|tyrannosaur, and sauropod or sauropod-like, which were either mammals
|outright as Dr. Velikovsky claimed, or were very similar to mammals.

Well Velikovsky was full of it.   *All* dinosaurs were members of the
'reptilian' group called Archosauria, which includes living crocodiles.
Splitting the dinosaurs along the four-footed/two-footed axis totally
ignores the facts.  Members of both major groups of dinosaurs
were both ways.  Of the Saurischians, the theropods were two-footed,
and the sauropods were four.  Among the Ornithischians the smaller
ornithopods, pachycephalosaurs, protoceratopsids, and heterodontosaurs
were two footed; and the 'advanced' ceratopsians and ankylosaurs were
four footed; and the larger ornithopods were both.

All dinosaurs shared certain anatomical features currently found only in
birds and crocodiles.  The various groups of dinosaurs shred a very close
origin in the Middle Triassic, and thus they most certainly all had a very
similar physiology.  The evidence as it currently stands strongly favors
endothermy for all of them except sauropods, and an avian-style four
chambered heart for *all* of them.  (A bird's four-chambered heart is
'backwards' compared to that of a mammal in terms of arterial connections).
Many traveled in herds, most layed eggs in nests, There is powerful evidence
that some dinosaurs used colorful visual display mechanisms for species
recognition.

So, when I say that dinosaurs more closely resembled birds than mammals,
I am talking about *all* of them, including the four-footed forms closely
related to the two-footed ones.

|The idea that sleeping "like a bird" would come naturally to a sauropod
|is idiotic for obvious reasons.

Nope, not really.

|Basically, at some point, everybody slips, falls, has to work under a
|car, goes swimming, or does some fricking thing which will require that
|he be able to lift his own weight off the ground.  The idea that sauropods
|might have been an exception to this is ludicrous and warrants serious
|consideration only by an idiot.

I do not think so.  It is entirely possible that falling over meant death
to a sauropod.  Not likely maybe, but possible.

Actually I suspect that just about every sauropod, except perhaps one genus,
*could* in fact stand up from a prone position.  I base this on the more
realistic analysis of limb capacity that I have read which gives all but the
most spindly-legged sauropod 10 to 20 times the support capacity needed for
their estimated weight.  (Even the exception stood in at about 5 times the
required capacity).
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins