slenderness of the cervical ribs), the act of straightening the neck would have caused the cervical ribs to splay outwards due to the action of the neck muscles attached to the ribs. As the head lunged forward, the volume of the esophagus would have increased, creating suction. Once the prey was caught, the fang-like teeth would have secured the prey in the mouth. However, in a response, Brigitte Demes and David Krause suggested that suction feeding would have involved the animal swallowing a large amount of saltwater as well as rapidly expanding its esophagus. Without evidence for adaptations to either behaviour (salt glands for the former, a large hyoid bone or specialised ribs for the latter), they considered the suggestion of Li and colleagues to be unlikely. Nevertheless, like other aquatic amniotes, Dinocephalosaurus would have swallowed and digested its prey head-first, as evidenced by the preservation of a perleidid fish in the abdominal region of LPV 30280 from Luoping. It is not likely that Dinocephalosaurus used its long neck for breathing by extending it vertically. If it tried to do so, the difference in pressure between the surface and its torso would be sufficiently extreme such that its lungs would not have inflated. Thus, in order to breathe, Dinocephalosaurus would need to approach the surface with a nearly horizontal neck. The horizontal posture of the neck would also have facilitated locomotion at the surface, due to its long profile increasing its "hull length" and reducing the effect of resistance from waves. Reproduction Dinocephalosaurus represents the climax of aquatic adaptations among the protorosaurs. Given its long neck and paddle-like limbs, it was probably incapable of functioning comfortably in a terrestrial environment. In 2021, Ryosuke Motani and Geerat Vermeij categorised this as the fourth in a five-step sequence of increasing adaptations to marine environments based on modern animals as analogues, whereas tanystropheids were only at the second step (feeding in the ocean). One consequence of these adaptations is that Dinocephalosaurus would have been incapable of building nests on land. This would also have prevented it from possessing hard-shelled reptilian eggs; such eggs necessitate the exchange of gases with the outside environment, and this process is significantly slower in water than it is in air. Thus, Dinocephalosaurus could not have been oviparous. At the same time, however, archosaurs are known for the total absence of viviparous, or live birth, among its living members.