14 DAY TRIAL // Contrary to popular opinion, long-necked dinosaurs did not use to swivel their heads around. What's more, they did not bob their heads from the ground all the way to treetops either, specialists writing in the journal PLOS ONE claim.
These researchers maintain the dinosaurs did not perform these actions not because they were too lazy or because they feared they might get dizzy.
Apparently, these animals' necks were surprisingly stiff, hence the fact that they did not move their heads all that much.
Sources say that the paleontologists now stating that long-necked dinosaurs had rather stiff necks base their claims on data collected while comparing and contrasting the anatomy of these ancient beasts to that of present-day ostriches.
They theorize that long-necked dinosaurs used to have both cartilage and soft tissue tucked in between the vertebrae that made up their necks, and that this greatly reduced their mobility.
“Imagine two bones next to each other moving. If you put anything in between them, like a muscle or something, then it's going to reduce the motion between those two bones,” specialist Matthew Cobley says.
Some researchers dispute this idea. They say that, since ostriches use just two legs to move about and dinosaurs walked on all fours, it makes little sense to compare these species and then draw conclusions concerning one of them.