B. Zarnik

Academic paper

Royal Morphological-Biological Institute, Zagreb

Zagreb

different parts of recent animals with similar structure and function. It was created by Dollo, and later on very successfully developed by Abel.1  This discipline has brought an end to the fiction about the appearance of “prehistoric monsters,” and with great probability defined the habitat for almost every animal which lived in various geological times and proved that they were not monsters, but in perfect harmony with the environment! There are some extinct forms for which there is no analogy in the present fauna, or the existing analogy is incomplete; this goes for some colossal forms of reptiles which have long aroused a great interest particularly because of their unusual form, large, stocky trunks and long necks; sauropterygians and sauropods. Even recent reconstructions present them as fictitious monsters which are in disharmony with the environment. Why did these gigantic animals, with long thin necks which reconstructions show in a stretched upward position, exist? What is the significance of such a neck? Is there an environment where such a neck would be useful? Or, perhaps, the existing way of presenting these creatures with erect, stretched necks is incorrect? As far as sauropods are concerned, Owen, Cope, and in recent times, Mathew — whose opinion Abel accepted — all emphasize that we are talking

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