Figure 8 - uploaded by Mathew Wedel
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Hypothetical reconstruction of the respiratory system of a diplodocid sauropod. The left forelimb, shoulder, and ribs have been removed for clarity. The lung is shown in dark blue, air sacs are light blue, and pneumatic diverticula are black. The length of the diverticula is shown by the presence of pneumatic features on all of the vertebrae from the front of the neck to the middle of the tail. The rest of the respiratory system has been restored based on that of birds. The skeleton is redrawn from Norman (1985: 83). The cervical vertebra is AMNH 7535, and the caudal vertebra is OMNH 2055.
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... in pneumatic foramina are present on every vertebra between the second vertebrae of the neck and the nineteenth vertebra of the tail (Gilmore, 1932, and personal observations). This means that in life the pneumatic diverticula reached at least as far forward as the second cervical vertebra and at least as far back as the nineteenth caudal vertebra (Figure 8). Possibly the diverticula were even more widespread and but failed to pneumatize any more bones, but they could not have been any less widespread. In general, more advanced sauropods tended to pneumatize more of the vertebral column. Except for the first cervical vertebra, which is always apneumatic, pneumatic chambers (or at least large fossae) are present in the cervical vertebrae of ; in the cervical ...
Context 2
... (Figure 8). In birds, such chambers are always produced by pneumatic diverticula (Britt, 1993). The presence of similar chambers in the bones of sauropods, , and has been accepted by most authors as unequivocal evidence of pneumaticity (Seeley, 1870; Cope, 1877; Marsh, 1877; Janensch, 1947; Romer, 1966; Britt, 1993, 1997; O’Connor, 2002). There is simply no alternative explanation, because no other process other than pneumatization produces large foramina that lead to internal chambers. As Janensch (1947: 10, translated from the German by G. Maier) said, “There is no basis to consider the [pneumatic] cavities in sauropod vertebrae as different from similar structures in the vertebrae of birds” (Figure ...
