These huge animals must have been very vulnerable to being hit by lightning. Also, I think that in the Jurassic the climate was warmer and there were more thunderstorms.
jim mcnamara
Aug23-08, 08:18 AM
This gives you an idea of the number of lightning hits per hectare per year
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1657
Note that large parts of the land receive very little lightning. Note Central Africa has the highest frequency of lightning hits.
Sauropod dinosaurs made a living eating leaves from higher branches of trees, analagous to giraffes today. Tress that were/are taller than the animals themselves. Giraffes occur in the area of the map that has extreme lightning frequency.
I would suggest that whatever behavior giraffes exhibit during a lightning event is adaptive. Consider using that as a model for guessing the behavior of sauropods.