Bigger Dinosaurs had warmer blood

BBC News ^

[Mazda3Fan]

The bigger a dinosaur was, the warmer its blood, a study of the big beasts' fossil remains shows.

[Mazda3Fan]

Interesting find!

[SunkenCiv]

Just adding this to the GGG catalog, not sending a general distribution.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

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[Fred Nerks]

this little fellow is an Australian Water Dragon, I have several in my garden, the largest is about 12 inches long; it comes out to lie in the sun in the morning...and his little motor doesn't start running until he's been sunning himself for an hour or so...so I try to imagine how long it would take for a huge dino (if it was a reptile) to get warm enough to get going...and I think to myself - he'd be lucky to get going before the sun went down!

[SunkenCiv]

If cold blooded, and assuming that the Earth wasn't closer to the Sun 65 million years ago. ;')

[Fred Nerks]

"...and assuming that the Earth wasn't closer to the Sun 65 million years ago. ;')"

But would it have been more hot on this planet if it was closer to the Sun? What if the atmosphere was 'different'?

I think I see what you mean though...Earth did 'sink beneath its wonted place' by 'two hand's breadth' and that must have been quite a distance. (And that wasn't 65 million years ago!)

[AndrewC]

so I try to imagine how long it would take for a huge dino (if it was a reptile) to get warm enough to get going...

Volume to surface area ratio.

A=4 pi r²

V= (4/3) pi r³

V/A= (4/3) pi r³ / 4 pi r²

V/A=r/3

IOW big things retain heat better than small things all other factors being the same.

[Fred Nerks]

from the article posted:


"Dinosaurs were long considered to be cold-blooded reptiles.

More recently, some researchers have proposed that the extinct creatures actively regulated their body temperature like mammals.

A study in the journal Plos Biology now suggests this is not the case, but that bigger dinosaurs may have lost heat so slowly that they stayed warm anyway.

Reptiles tend to be cold-blooded ectotherms, whose internal body temperature is dependent on the outside environment. For example, lizards and snakes will sun themselves on rocks in order to heat themselves up.

The question of whether dinosaurs were warm-blooded or cold-blooded just doesn't have a simple answer

Dr Angela Milner, Natural History Museum
Birds and mammals, on the other hand, tend to be warm-blooded endotherms. They can regulate their internal body temperature regardless of external influence.

Their body temperatures tend to be more constant than those of reptiles and higher than the outside environment."

----

So, the large dinosaurs obviously were not reptiles, correct?

[AndrewC]

So, the large dinosaurs obviously were not reptiles, correct?

Not if cold-blood is a requirement. They appear to be warm-blooded ectotherms.

[SunkenCiv]

There's another story floating around regarding the possible growth of trees on Antarctica, and another regurgitation of the false idea that Antarctica has been ice covered for (in this version) 40 million years. Antarctica was temperate less than three million years ago.

The Earth's in prograde orbit around the Sun. Assuming that to have been the case right along :') there will have been a transfer of momentum through tidal forces, meaning the Earth is slowing but surely spiraling its way away from the Sun (likewise the other planets).

[Fred Nerks]

"...there will have been a transfer of momentum through tidal forces, meaning the Earth is slowing but surely spiraling its way away from the Sun..."

That's not fast enough for me, I'm looking for ancient references to historical observances of a change in Earth's orbit...I want witnesses!

"...The annals of the 'Bamboo Books' obviously refer to the same event when they inform us that in the tenth year of the Emperor Kwei (the seventeenth emperor of the Dynasty Yu, or the eighteenth since Yahou) "the five planets went out of their courses. In the night, stars fell like rain. The earth shook."

I want a good, old fashioned Catastrophe!

Now as for Antarctica:

FOSSILS FOUND IN ANTARCTICA Names followed by an asterisk (*) are not dinos, but other interesting fossils Underlined names are links to information sheets. Names in quotation marks are unofficial.

an unnamed Theropod A bipedal, meat-eating dinosaur (a theropod) was discovered by Judd Case, James Martin and their team on James Ross Island in late 2003. Fossils found include lower leg and foot bones, fragments of the upper jaw, and some teeth. The dinosaur was about 1.8 to 2.4 meters (6 to 8 feet) tall. This Cretaceous period dinosaur lived about 70 million years ago, towards the end of the Mesozoic Era.

an unnamed Sauropod A bipedal, long-necked, plant-eating dinosaur (a sauropod) was discovered in the Antarctic interior by William R. Hammer and his team in late 2003. Fossils found include the pelvis (a hip bone 3 meters wide) with the ilium (one of a dinosaur's hip bones). The dinosaur was over 9 meters (30 feet) long. This Jurassic period dinosaur lived about 200 million years ago.

a Nodosaurid Ankylosaur An armored, quadrupedal, plant eating late Cretaceous period dinosaur was discovered in 1986 on James Ross Island (Olivero, E., Scasso, R. and C. Rinaldi ). This was the first dinosaur found in Antarctica. Cryolophosaurus

A crested meat-eater (a theropod dinosaur) about 20 ft (8 m) long from the early Jurassic period. It was found in 1994 by Hammer, William R. and W. J. Hickerson. an unnamed hadrosaur

A duck-billed, bipedal, plant eating dinosaur was discovered by Jim Martin of the Museum of Geology in South Dakota, USA on Vega and Seymour Islands in early 1998.

a Hypsilophodontid a plant-eating ornithopod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous period was found on the Lopez de Bertodano Formation on Vega Island in 1991 (Hooker, J.J., Milner, A.C. and S.E.K. Sequeira ).

an unnamed iguanodontid A 12 foot (4 m) long bipedal, plant eating iguanodontid dinosaur was discovered in February, 1999 on a rocky beach of James Ross Island. unnamed Plateosaurid prosauropods - plant eating dinosaurs from the early Jurassic period. Lystrosaurus*

a small dicynodont, an herbivorous mammal-like reptile (not a dinosaur)

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/dinosaurs/dinofossils/locations/Antarctica.shtml

Prehistoric Tree Bark

fossil stump

Geologists have discovered in Antarctica the remains of three ancient deciduous forests complete with fossils of fallen leafs scattered around the tree trunks. The clusters of petrified tree stumps were found upright in the original living positions they held during the Permian period...

They lived at a time when the Antarctic climate was much warmer — although the trees still had to survive an extreme light regime of low sunlight half the year and darkness the other half...

(My bold.Strikes me as somewhat contradictory.)

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20041101/leaves.html

[SunkenCiv]

They didn't have to endure such conditions; also, beech tree fossils from less than 3 million years ago were located. One future Nobel laureate has in recent years claimed that the fossils were carried to the site by wind.

[Fred Nerks]

FLATULENCE!

[Fred Nerks]

You'll never think of Antartica the same way again if you download this huge file of images:

http://www.glaciers.pdx.edu/2005_Dry_Valleys_Liston.pdf

I picked up the link from:

http://www.glaciers.pdx.edu/

SLIDE SHOW BY GLEN LISTON

[Fred Nerks]

One future Nobel laureate has in recent years claimed that the fossils were carried to the site by wind.

-----

I meant HIS flatulence, not yours, LOL!

[SunkenCiv]

Still, I wonder if dinosaurs tasted like chicken...

[Fred Nerks]

Still, I wonder if dinosaurs tasted like chicken...

-----

I have it on good report (haven't tried it myself) crocodile steaks taste like chicken...

Lookie here:

Although crocodiles belong to the reptile family along with the lizard, the snake and the tortoise, with regard to their build they have more in common with birds than with any other reptile. It is not surprising therefore that crocodile meat tastes more like chicken or turkey than anything else.

http://www.deli-ostrich.com/products4.htm

This site offers a wide range of delicacies...rattle snake, bison, antelope and zebra. No dinosaur, regretfully. Bon appetit!