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A couple of days ago, a paper by Tschopp and Mateus (2012) described and named a new diplodocine from the Morrison Formation, Kaatedocus siberi , based on a beautifully preserved specimen consisting of a complete skull and the first fourteen cervical vertebrae.

Thanks to everyone who joined in the discussion last time on why sauropods had such long necks.  I’ve discussed this a little with Matt, and we are both amazed that so many different hypotheses have been advanced (even if some of them are tongue-in-cheek).  We’ll probably come back to all these ideas later.

Why did sauropods have such long necks? It’s the single most obvious and important question about sauropods, so it’s a bit surprising to think that we’ve never really addressed this question directly.

[This is a guest post by frequent commenter Heinrich Mallison .  Heinrich is maybe best known to SV-POW! readers for his work on digital modelling of sauropodomorphs, though that may change now that his paper on sauropod rearing mechanics is out.  Read on …] — Maybe this post should have been titled “How sauropods breathed, ate, and farted”. Or maybe not.

“Sauropods are basically alien animals . . . What can be said of the habits of an animal with the nose of a Macrauchenia, the neck of a giraffe, the limbs of an elephant, the feet of a chalicothere, the lungs of a bird, and the tail of a lizard?