Speculative Sauropods

A survey of speculative sauropod designs traces a handful of imaginative takes on what sauropods might have become in alternate histories. It revisits classic proposals from Dougal Dixon’s New Dinosaurs - including a trunked “Lumber,” a heavily armored “Turtosaur” inspired by titanosaur osteoderms, a dwarf island form, and the Rajaphant - alongside Memo Kösemen’s Brontosapiens and the movie-era creatures of King Kong. The World of Kong natural history book supplies two unrealized sauropods: Asperdorsus, a spiny, plausibly diplodocoid form, and Diablosaurus, a rhino‑like beast that provokes criticism for being unimaginative and internally inconsistent (illustrations imply an ornithischian anatomy while the text calls it a sauropod).

The account uses these examples to argue that real sauropod evolution was strongly canalized - large, long‑necked, graviportal, oviparous quadrupeds - and to sketch "forbidden" alternative experiments that rarely occurred in nature. “Nontosaurs” such as the gazelleopod, antlertitan and other thought experiments feature in a mini‑paper and talks labeled Sauropod Heresies, exploring why certain morphologies are unlikely and where escape from “brontosaur lock‑in” might be plausible. Recent behind‑the‑scenes thinking from Mark Witton is promised to expand those possibilities, and reader comments add historical points (Saltasaurus osteoderms), taxonomic debate, and reflections on the cultural biases that shape speculative zoology.