Dinosaur Profile: Diplodocus

[@ShingenNolaan]

Dude, I am starting to be hooked to your content. My long buried dino-passion is starting to comiing up again ^^

[@CaspiRose99]

Ikr

[@royjacksonjr.4447]

I NEVER lost my love/fascination/obsession with the beasts!

[@rhm35z]

Very refreshing new approach to presenting these wonderful animals of the past. Thanks for your hard work. I enjoyed it very much.

[@ninetyZeven]

19:47 Oh. thought you said 'Datsun' there.

[@TheaSvendsen]

This is the best and most in-depth video I’ve ever seen on long necked dinosaurs, let alone diplodocus. Subscribed! I’m going to head over to your channel to see what else you’ve got :D

[@palaeo_channel]

My longer one on Brachiosaurus is even more in-depth.

[@jsfbr]

Excellent class! Thank you! 👏👏👏👏👏

[@TJ24050]

Would love to see a profile on the Utah Raptor or Triceratops! Great videos BTW. Well researched and presented. Love the fact they’re not just like a struggle to 10 minutes but comfortably over 20.

[@Dell-ol6hb]

Also it’s worth mentioning many many animals use their tails as whip like weapons, such as Iguanas for example. But I think considering their incredible size whipping their tails would probably not be worth it considering the damage they would presumably sustain from it

[@palaeo_channel]

Exactly. Slight stress fractures have been found, but a whip crack against something would reduce the tail bones to splinters.

[@Mistfall254]

@@palaeo_channel Would that not be determined be the point of impact on the tail though?

[@kornchaiwongkiat7218]

Man your videos are a gem, I’m really hooked! Keep up these amazing works dude ^^

[@elserg80]

Great vid

[@erichtomanek4739]

Monitor lizards use their tails effectively for defence and attack. Not at whip cracking speed, so perhaps diplodocus did the same. Also, from what I have seen, many sauropod young are cute. Animals with cute young exhibit parental care. Crocodilian perhaps, if it is not for an extended period of time?

[@SK-pb2nv]

Great video. Very informative. Thanks! :)

[@craigkdillon]

OK. about sauropod feeding... I always felt that they fed like giraffes, who also have smallish teeth. It always seemed right to me that they had long muscular tongues. It was tongues that gathered and stripped leaves. The teeth were used as snippers.

[@Phoenix.Sparkles]

Very few dinosaurs had a tongue similar to ours, instead it would be like on an alligator, attached to the bottom of the mouth.

[@craigkdillon]

@@Phoenix.Sparkles I have read books on dinosaurs, and on vertebrate evolution. I have never read anything about tongues. The tongues of lizards, alligators, etc are as you say. However, dinosaurs were very different, and their tongues could be different. A more apt comparison is not with current reptiles, which dinosaurs are distantly related to, but to birds, which are much closer. Hummingbirds have quite long tongues. But, they are very specialized, you might say. Well, the long necked sauropods were also very specialized. They had small heads to swallow a lot of food -- not unlike giraffes. So, I postulated "why could sauropods not have had prehensile tongues, like giraffes, that stripped vegetation, and gathered it into their mouths??" After all, their teeth weren't very large or massive. A tongue would have been great.

[@wcdeich4]

BTW, sloths have 10 neck vertebrae & manatees only have 6.

[@palaeo_channel]

I did not know that, so thank you for informing me. Mammals are not my expertise (besides being one). It is interesting, though, that there are only 3 examples of exceptions to the vertebrae number: manatees and two types of sloth.

[@wcdeich4]

@@palaeo_channel Yeah, sloths are really weird. They also have ever growing teeth w/ no enamel & conveniently evolved 4 chamber stomachs like artiodactyls. Xenarthrans may be the most basal placental mammals, so they've had a lot of time to evolve to be different. Ironically, the 2 toed sloth seems to be doing better than the 3 toed sloth, probably b/c they are sightly omnivorous, occasionally eating insects, even small lizards, etc

[@WildBillCox13]

A thought or two on topic and a bit about predator tactics against large sauropods. If your head is held that low you are in danger from predators. Despite the size and mass of an adult specimen, its probable head posture brings it into easy reach of Allosaurs. A predator doesn't need to graze feed if it can bring the entire animal down by hanging onto its head. A single allosaur could manage it. The diplodocus' body could not reach its head to help protect it in any way if there was an allosaur hanging on for dear life.

[@palaeo_channel]

Interesting idea, but diplodocus could move its head side to side and also up to get away from an attacker. Even a slow moving neck this long could move the head fast. Get too close and that neck could sideswipe you. Allosaurus did not have a killing bite anything like lions, crocodiles, or later dinosaurs, so biting the head would not be effective. Also these animals lived in groups. Spend too long hanging on to a diplodocus' head, and another one is going to move and step on you. There are many ideas on how theropods fed on sauropods, but I think this needs some work. Interesting thinking, though.

[@antonbrakhage490]

@@palaeo_channel Allosaurus did not have the very strongest bite, but it still had a mouthful of very sharp teeth. Your point that Diplodocus could simply move its head is valid- I'd guess an Allosaur would have to either ambush it or work in groups to really pull this off.

[@TeethToothman]

❤❤❤

[@Acme633]

So would one conclude a Stegosaurus wouldn't use its tail for fear of breaking the spikes? I don't think that was a clear argument that it did not swing its tail for defense. It is true the bones might break, but that also mean the impact on the attacker would be devastating, and that may be sufficient reason for them to stay away.

[@palaeo_channel]

Stegosaurus has a pretty good record on its spikes. Only on very rare circumstances that they would break off. Diplodocus might well swish its tail for intimidation or hit an attacker. I was against a whip-like sonic-booming strike that would severely injure itself as well as the attacker.

[@Phoenix.Sparkles]

Stegosaurus had a much shorter tail, not nearly as flexible and weighed down by the spikes and plates, it most likely used simple left/right movement, however a whip moves in waves, so the power of the diplos tail probably depended a lot of how much of its tail could flex like that of an actual whip to transfer energy and sustain injury upon avoiding injury, which on its own makes it unlikely the diplo used its tail as a whip.

[@Acme633]

@@Phoenix.Sparkles The tail did not have to be used as a whip but could still be a powerful weapon. A sweep of the tail could cause a predator to fall down and suffer serious injuries (like break a leg or even spine). A one to five ton predator (like elephants today) could not jump and so could not escape the sweep of the tail.

[@dleddy14]

Elephants don't "shake the earth". Why would Diplodocus or any other large dinosaur? I think this is a misrepresentation of what it would be like to be close to one.

[@palaeo_channel]

Elephants can create seismic waves with their feet to communicate over long distances. While we do not feel these, one sauropod could weigh more than 10 elephants, a quarter of which would come down with each step. These were seriously big animals and sometimes difficult to get your head around today.

[@JimCullen]

Wait is the ovipositor not a thing? I must have watched Walking With Dinosaurs a hundred times as a kid and it was pretty much my primary source for dinosaur knowledge until recently. Is that a since-debunked theory?

[@palaeo_channel]

It is not a debunked theory, it was never a credible theory in the first place. It is much more likely that sauropods crouched down, but for various reasons the Walking creators used a turkey-like ovipositor to get the eggs into the nest without cracking.

[@lordandprotector]

"Longus " or "Bigus" ?

[@jsfbr]

👏👏👏👏👏

[@horationelson57]

Hands up others who also would rather enjoy seeing the real bones and not casts? Are casts essential because of the prohibitive weight of the beast/s ostensibly assembled in life like form, or.....that they are too precious to be allowed out of the university environment?

[@palaeo_channel]

Usually the bones are too delicate. Also full skeletons are practically never found, so replacements have to be made. The metal struts holding up the bones usually go through the bones too. One rare exception is Sue from the Field Museum. Most of those are real fossils that have to be removed from display for palaeontological work.

[@authentic_candor]

diplo-docus, exCUSE me?????????/

[@denizen9998]

I guess Seismosaurus was a fake.