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Science

Dinosaurs Doing The Backfloat 32

Posted by timothy from the see-you-in-bermuda dept.
Meshach writes "The Globe and Mail has an interesting article about how the scientific community is becoming convinced that dinosaurs were able to float. This helps to explain how creatures of such huge mass were able to spread around the world."
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Dinosaurs Doing The Backfloat More

Dinosaurs Doing The Backfloat

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  • doo dah doo dah

    Matt Biondi surrenders.

  • Correct me if I'm wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by EnVisiCrypt ( 178985 ) <groovetheorist@nOSpam.hotmail.com> on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @01:56AM (#7335764)
    ... but the dinosaur's remains spread across the world due to the fact that their living bodies were all together on the super-continent pangea, which then separated, leaving the remains spread across the continents we live on today.

    Moreover, the article doesn't echo the article submitter when he said, "This helps to explain how creatures of such huge mass were able to spread around the world."

    In fact, the article merely speculates that this is how sauropods and the like moved without collapsing under their own weight.

    I'm not trying to knock the poster, but young people read this site, and I'd hate like hell for anyone to be misinformed.
    • I'd definately think that it's difficult for such an animal to swim such great distances anyway. The "colossal corks" I'm sure would have to exert plenty of energy to swim from one shore to another, even though the shores might have been closer together back then. I'm not exactly certain on how long a dinosaur can go without food, but I'm pretty sure that such a sojourn might cause them to starve to death. Hmm... Maybe there are plenty of fossils under the ocean. But probably not, I would imagine that the s

    • Correction: (Score:5, Funny)

      by Ieshan ( 409693 ) <ieshan@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @02:37AM (#7335908) Homepage Journal
      You've got it all backwards.

      When Noah floated around in his Ark, the Dinosaurs had to go somewhere, so obviously they had to float. I mean, it just wouldn't do to have huge carnivores on the boat with Noah, would it? Clearly, a floating dinosaur is rendered harmless (very small rocks are harmless, and they float too!), and therefore, everything works scientifically according to God's design. Unfortunately, when the waters began to recede, the Dinosaurs floated all over the place, and most of them died from lack of proper places to pray, thus creating the fossils as we know them.

      Sheesh. You evolution people make me sick.

      Laugh. It's a joke.
      • I know you were making a joke, but why exactly wouldn't Noah have dinosaurs on the ark too? I mean Noah was a pretty old guy, maybe he was wise enough to gather baby dinosaurs instead of the 100 ft long big boys. Just a thought to ponder

    • Re:Correct me if I'm wrong... (Score:4, Informative)

      by eggstasy ( 458692 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @02:45AM (#7335935) Journal
      Pangaea broke up around 200 million years ago, and dinosaurs appeared around 210 million years ago, so only the very earliest of dinosaurs were around to see it happen, considering that they were around for another 135 million years after that.
      I'd hate like hell for anyone to be misinformed ;)
      • /me was smacked down! I did some research (Like I should have done in the first place), and you are right.

        However, my original point mostly stands; dinosaurs did not get where they were by floating across the oceans like corks.

        Thanks for the correction.
        • dinosaurs did not get where they were by floating across the oceans like corks.

          Right, they got where they were by floating across the oceans like cheeze whiz!

          Sorry, the image of "dinosaurs floating around like corks" struck my twisted funny-bone :D

          -
    • and I'd hate like hell for anyone to be misinformed.

      Then you'd be better off encouraging them to get their information somewhere other than /.!
  • What a sac of hot air!
  • Have they found bodyprints of when the dinosaur got in water too deep for it, tipped over and drowned?

    -Grump.

  • We care. (Score:1, Insightful)

    by u-238 ( 515248 )
    And it matters. Really.

  • I for one wish to be the first to welcome our floating joke overlords

  • Scientific American had an article about Dino constuction (in 1993 - I am not sure), that showed that the legs of teh dinos were strong enough to allow them to walk and even run, some of them reasonably fast.
    • Dinosaur locomotion has been one of the big research areas in vertebrate palaeontology for decades, and it's not going to go away any time soon! I don't think you'd find any informed scientist today claiming that any dinosaur was obliged to live in water (as used to be a claimed of the sauropods twenty or thirty years ago), but exactly how athletic they were on land is still controversial.

      One camp, vocally led by Bob Bakker and Greg Paul, claims that most dinosaurs (including Tyrannosaurus and Triceratop

  • food (Score:1)

    by grosa ( 648390 )
    Sauropods probably travelled in herds, and were wandering vegetarians. Being able to float might have helped to find food, or to survive the occasional flooding caused by monsoon rains, says Dr. Henderson.

    life is easy when you're a vegetarian, you can just float along with your mouth open, and eventually you get a full meal ;)
  • aside from the geek value of all this research, it should provide a good basis to help solve some robotics problems in the future. lots of problems robots have with walking could probably be rationalized similarly to the problems huge, clumsy, unbalanced dinosaurs had. problems of large-object boyancy and maneuverability as well, although i don't imagine that these things were very maneuverable in water either.

    of course, i grew up playing with plastic dinosaurs and erektor sets, so i might be biased.
  • Welcome to your first Dinasour swimming lesson! We are going to teach you how to float so we can baffle the scientics 2000000 years from now. MWAHAHAHAHA. Wont that be fun!!!
  • In claiming that sauropods could float but not swim, I wonder if the researchers considered their tails? I can see that a diplodocus might have trouble doing the doggy-paddle, but with a tail as long as a couple of city buses, you'd think they could get some speed up swimming tadpole-style. Also their tails and necks would probably be quite effective counterbalances if they did start to wobble.

  • Elephants float. Horses float. Dogs float. Rats float. Humans float.

    There are too many advantages to being able to survive in water to think that dinosaurs would actually sink.
    • Indeed.. I know not of any vertebrate that sinks in water.

      However, I can see the benefit of a body design that floats with the head on the upper side. Apparently, this is what this article and the theory about 'air sacks' and all is about.

    • No one is arguing that there is no advantage to NOT floating. What these scientists did was find evidence that dinosaurs may have floated (anomolous footprints, spinal air sacs, etc.), then ran models/simulations to show that the evidence allows for brachiopods being able to float. This does not constitute *proof*, btw, just an credible assimilation of the gathered evidence to form a likely explanation.

      FYI, certain primates (chimps and orangutans, I think) will not float. So your logical argument of "it
      • So your logical argument of "it's advantageous, therefor it's obviously true" is false.

        You are injecting words into my post. I never said it is "obviously true". I said that we shouldn't be suprised, because it is so common that so many modern animals do, in fact, float.

    • Actually I sink... very amusing for my family.. (dad try to float!)

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