Speculative sauropods

If you travel in the same circles I do, you probably know that my friend and colleague Mark Witton is working on a speculative biology book, Dinosaurs Evolved, that takes a fresh look at what life on Earth might be like now had the asteroid missed and the K-Pg extinction never happened. As a lifelong spec-bio fan, I’m stoked for that project. Speculative sauropods have given me a lot to think about, especially in the past few years, so I thought it would be fun to revisit some in this post. Maybe all? There aren’t a ton of examples. If you know of any I missed here, sing out in the comments. (I’m not including any from the Speculative Dinosaur Project out of lack of familiarity — the project was basically dead by the time I would have started following it — and I’m not sure any are currently accessible anyway.) Rather than proceeding chronologically, I’m going to start with my favorites and proceed in the direction of the most-loathed, for reasons that will become apparent later on.…