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Dinosaur cold-blood theory in doubt
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Author:  pcernie [ Wed Jun 27, 2012 10:02 pm ]
Post subject:  Dinosaur cold-blood theory in doubt
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18602965

Potential game changer for all sorts of theories that one :)
Author:  HeatherKay [ Thu Jun 28, 2012 8:14 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Dinosaur cold-blood theory in doubt
Is this news? I'm sure this theory has been around for some time now.
Author:  pcernie [ Thu Jun 28, 2012 8:33 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Dinosaur cold-blood theory in doubt
HeatherKay wrote:
Is this news? I'm sure this theory has been around for some time now.


First I'd seen anything, but then I hadn't been paying attention lol.
Author:  paulzolo [ Thu Jun 28, 2012 9:01 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Dinosaur cold-blood theory in doubt
HeatherKay wrote:
Is this news? I'm sure this theory has been around for some time now.


The notion of warm blooded dinosaurs is not new - some of the earlier creatures commonly referred to as “dinosaurs” (basically because the Victorians decided that this is what they were due to them being all fossilised and that) are thought to be closer to mammals.

Quote:
In the cladistic system, only monophyletic groups are used: that is, taxa that include all the descendants. The monophyletic group to which Dimetrodon belongs also includes the close relatives Ctenospondylus, Neosaurus, Secodontosaurus, Sphenacodon and Steppesaurus. Within Sphenacodontidae, Secodontosaurus is the closest relative of Dimetrodon.[16] The Sphenacodontidae are classified, together with Tetraceratops and Therapsida (which now includes the mammals) in the clade Sphenacodontoidea. The Sphenacodontoidea together with a few basal Haptodus forms the clade Sphenacodontia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimetrodon

Quote:
Sphenacodontoidea is a node-based clade that defined to include the most recent common ancestor of the Sphenacodontidae and the Therapsida and their descendants (including mammals). They are defined according to a number of specialised characteristics concerning proportions of the bones of the skull and the teeth.
The Sphenacodontoidea evolved from earlier Sphenacodontia such as Haptodus via a number of transitional stages of small, unspecialised pelycosaurs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphenacodontoidea

Things like this make the whole warm blooded/cold blooded differentiation with dinosaurs not as black and white as it may have been 30 or 40 years ago. I certainly remember Robert Bakker doing the rounds when Jurassic Park came out tailking up Tyrannosaurus Rex and arguing (pretty convincingly) that it could not have been cold blooded - it would not have survived, and more so it was so large it HAD to be warm blooded just to keep those massive leg muscles active.

No one will ever know - unless we can either clone one (very unlikely) or travel back in time to observe. I suspect we’ll find a mixture, but my (uneducated) thoughts are that the bigger ones needed to be warm blooded in some fashion.
Author:  bobbdobbs [ Thu Jun 28, 2012 9:04 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Dinosaur cold-blood theory in doubt
HeatherKay wrote:
Is this news? I'm sure this theory has been around for some time now.

Its been around for a very long time, at least since the 1960s. I'm sure there was a horizon style programme in the 1980s that looked at whether dinosaurs were cold or warm blooded.
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