"Cold-Blooded or Warm-Blooded? Dinosaurs May Have..." Topic

…Been in Between.

"Some have called it the last big dinosaur debate: Were dinosaurs cold-blooded like reptiles, or warm-blooded like mammals? Now, a new study comparing dinosaur growth and metabolic rates to those of a range of modern mammals suggests they may have been somewhere in between.

Cold-blooded animals–such as fish, amphibians and reptiles–are ectothermic, which means they take on the temperature of their surroundings. This means when the external temperature is cool, they tend to be sluggish. Warm-blooded animals like mammals and birds are endothermic; they can generate heat within their bodies and maintain core body temperature regardless of their surroundings. These traits enable faster movement and increased brainpower. Cold-blooded animals do not have these advantages, but they are more economical and can survive longer on less food.

When scientists first started studying dinosaur remains, they assumed the prehistoric creatures were slow-moving and sluggish, like the lizards they resembled; they called them "tail-draggers." Later, scientific opinion shifted in the other direction, arguing that smaller, faster predatory dinosaurs must have been warm-blooded in order to move quickly enough to hunt their prey. After the question of why dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago and how they are related to modern birds, the warm- versus cold-blooded debate can arguably be called "the last big one," as John Grady, an ecologist at the University of New Mexico told BBC News…"
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Amicalement
Armand

I wouldn't be surprised, since they've found Great White Sharks to have similar abilities, and they and/or their cousins are millions of years old, supposedly.

Thanks for sharing.

A votre service mon cher ami!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

I remember talking to a paleontologist who had been at one of the conferences where this question came up. The only conclusion that came out of the discussion was that the idea of 'warm blooded and cold blooded' was, much, much more complicated than it first appeared. :)

Also, Dinosaurs were a big and diverse group, so it's possible that some species leaned one way and some the other.

-Will