▶ Your Answer :
The reading passage asserts that the neck of sauropods was
held in a horizontal position on account of three reasons. However, the
lecturer totally refutes the passage by stating that each reason is groundless.
To begin with, the lecturer maintains that a sauropod’s
tails were so much lighter than the massive neck of it that there would not be
any balance issues. According to the lecturer, the tails were not heavy at all,
because of their slender conformation and their hollow bones. This is
antagonistic to the reading passage’s claim that a sauropod had to use its neck
as a counterweight for its tail.
Furthermore, in the lecture, she contends that the marine
vegetation was not a primary food source of a sauropod. Since it needs huge
amount of food in order to maintain its gigantic body, it would have been
impossible with marine plants, which were not abundant in that time period. The
lecturer argues that the vertical neck would be much more beneficial because it
could enable a species to reach plant leaves located on high position.
Last, the speaker disagrees with the reading passage’s
argument that weak neck muscle of a sauropod is the evidence of a horizontal
neck position. She states that powerful shoulder muscles of it were more than
capable of maintaining a vertical neck position.
In a nutshell, the lecturer entirely rebuts the reading
passage, which believes that the sauropods had a horizontal neck position, by
mentioning three opposing reasons discussed above. |