sent signals along the extended nerve systems and she pulled herself through the swamp with noisy sucking sounds. Soon she was back in the main channel, still hunting vaguely for something she could neither define nor locate. And so she spent the long tropical night.
Diplodocus was able to function as capably as she did for three reasons. When she was in the swamp at the foot of the cliff, an area that would have meant death for most animals, she was able to extricate herself because her massive feet had a curious property; although they made a footprint many inches across as. they flattened out in mud, they could, when it came time to withdraw them from the clinging muck, compress to the width of the foreleg; so that for diplodocus to pull her huge leg and foot from mud was as simple as pulling a reed from the muck at the edge of the swamp; there was nothing for the mud to cling to, and the leg pulled free with a swooshing sound.
Diplodocus, ‘double beams,’ was so named because sixteen of her tail vertebrae—twelve through twenty-seven behind the hips—were made with paired flanges to protect the great artery that ran along the underside of the tail. But the vertebrae had another channel topside, and it ran from the base of the head to the strongest segment of the tail. In this channel lay a powerful and very thick sinewy which was anchored securely at shoulder and hip and which could be activated from either position. Thus the long neck and the sweeping tail were the progenitors of the crane, which in later time would lift extremely heavy objects by the clever device of running a cable over a pulley and counterbalancing the whole. The pulley used by diplodocus was the channel made by the paired flanges of the vertebrae; her cable was the powerful sinew of neck and tail; her counterbalance was the bulk of her torso, and all functioned with an almost divine simplicity. Had she had powerful teeth, her neck was so excellently balanced that she could have lifted into the air the dinosaur that attacked her in the way the claw of a well-designed crane can lift an object many times its own apparent weight. Without this advanced system of cable and pulley, diplodocus could have activated neither her neck nor her tail, and she could not have survived. With it, she was a sophisticated machine, as well adapted to her mode of life as any animal which might succeed her in generations to come.
The third advantage she had was remarkable, and raises questions as to how it could have developed. The powerful bones of her legs, which were under water most of the time, were of the most heavy construction, thus providing her with necessary ballast, but those that were higher in her body were of successively lighter bulk, not only in sheer weigh but also in actual bone composition, and this delicate construction buoyed up her body, permitting it almost to float.
That was not all. Many fenestrations, open spaces like windows. perforated the vertebrae of her neck and tail, thus reducing their weight. These intricate bones, with their channels top and bottom, were so exquisitely engineered that they can be compared only to the arches and windows of a Gothic cathedral. Bone was used only where it was required to handle stress. No shred was left behind to add its weight if it could be dispensed with, yet every arch required for stability was in place. The joints were articulated so perfectly that the long neck could twist in any direction, yet the flanges within which the sinews rode were so strong that they would not be damaged if a great burden was placed on neck or head.
It was this marvel of engineering, this infinitely sophisticated machine which had only recently developed and which would flourish for another seventy million years, that floated along the shore of the lagoon that night, and when the little mammal came out of its nest at dawn, it saw her twisting her neck out toward the lagoon, then inland toward the chalk
Diplodocus was able to function as capably as she did for three reasons. When she was in the swamp at the foot of the cliff, an area that would have meant death for most animals, she was able to extricate herself because her massive feet had a curious property; although they made a footprint many inches across as. they flattened out in mud, they could, when it came time to withdraw them from the clinging muck, compress to the width of the foreleg; so that for diplodocus to pull her huge leg and foot from mud was as simple as pulling a reed from the muck at the edge of the swamp; there was nothing for the mud to cling to, and the leg pulled free with a swooshing sound.
Diplodocus, ‘double beams,’ was so named because sixteen of her tail vertebrae—twelve through twenty-seven behind the hips—were made with paired flanges to protect the great artery that ran along the underside of the tail. But the vertebrae had another channel topside, and it ran from the base of the head to the strongest segment of the tail. In this channel lay a powerful and very thick sinewy which was anchored securely at shoulder and hip and which could be activated from either position. Thus the long neck and the sweeping tail were the progenitors of the crane, which in later time would lift extremely heavy objects by the clever device of running a cable over a pulley and counterbalancing the whole. The pulley used by diplodocus was the channel made by the paired flanges of the vertebrae; her cable was the powerful sinew of neck and tail; her counterbalance was the bulk of her torso, and all functioned with an almost divine simplicity. Had she had powerful teeth, her neck was so excellently balanced that she could have lifted into the air the dinosaur that attacked her in the way the claw of a well-designed crane can lift an object many times its own apparent weight. Without this advanced system of cable and pulley, diplodocus could have activated neither her neck nor her tail, and she could not have survived. With it, she was a sophisticated machine, as well adapted to her mode of life as any animal which might succeed her in generations to come.
The third advantage she had was remarkable, and raises questions as to how it could have developed. The powerful bones of her legs, which were under water most of the time, were of the most heavy construction, thus providing her with necessary ballast, but those that were higher in her body were of successively lighter bulk, not only in sheer weigh but also in actual bone composition, and this delicate construction buoyed up her body, permitting it almost to float.
That was not all. Many fenestrations, open spaces like windows. perforated the vertebrae of her neck and tail, thus reducing their weight. These intricate bones, with their channels top and bottom, were so exquisitely engineered that they can be compared only to the arches and windows of a Gothic cathedral. Bone was used only where it was required to handle stress. No shred was left behind to add its weight if it could be dispensed with, yet every arch required for stability was in place. The joints were articulated so perfectly that the long neck could twist in any direction, yet the flanges within which the sinews rode were so strong that they would not be damaged if a great burden was placed on neck or head.
It was this marvel of engineering, this infinitely sophisticated machine which had only recently developed and which would flourish for another seventy million years, that floated along the shore of the lagoon that night, and when the little mammal came out of its nest at dawn, it saw her twisting her neck out toward the lagoon, then inland toward the chalk
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