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Thursday, March 26, 2026

The crazy long spines on sauropod necks, etc.

The long spiney things on necks of dinos. Especially obvious on sauropods. What are they for exactly? Are they just related to tendons that start to form bones (happens in some humans ... like in legs somewhere I think).  

Talked about here: https://svpow.com/category/dicraeosaurids/

quote "The serial positions of the cervical ribs with prominent dorsal processes is telling — in every example that we know of, whether sauropod, theropod, or (shudder) ornithischian, the dorsal processes are best-developed in the middle of the neck. That suggests that the divergent muscles were pulling on the cervical ribs hard enough to leave separately-ossifying tendons only at mid-neck, at some distance from both the head and the trunk."


It seems these critters were doing some real work with their necks. Ceratopsians and theropods had big heads to hold up and maneuver. Apatosaurs didn’t have big heads, but they had big heavy necks — weirdly, apomorphically, expensively heavy necks — so whatever they were doing, it was probably something important.

Carnotaurus , not a sauropod, also has 'em. 





UPDATE, this vid at time 30:13 has two sauropods, one with forked neck “ribs” and other without forking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty-ngnGT0ls

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