Dinosaur It turns out that not only animals are warm-blooded but cold-blooded. That’s revealed in a study on dinosaur metabolism by Jasmina Weimann, who is conducting her post-doctoral studies at CalTech.
Launch Live ScienceJasmina and her colleagues analyzed 55 species (mostly dinosaur). From the results of her analysis, Jasmina found that warm-blooded animals, which had only been seen in mammals and birds, were also present in most dinosaurs.
But according to him, not all dinosaurs are warm-blooded animals.
Jasmina and colleagues analyzed a wide variety of dinosaur groups. The team then tracked the evolutionary processes of the metabolism of warm and cold blooded animals.
They found that dinosaurs were descended from warm-blooded animals. But in its development, it is not fixed.
In the Triassic period, about 251.9 million and 201.3 million years ago, dinosaurs were divided into two major groups: saurisians (lizard-backed dinosaurs) and ornitisians (bird-hips).
The evidence gathered implies the fact that the saurisians, including the Tyrannosaurs and Alosaurus, were warm-blooded animals like their ancestors.
Birds are their lineage and still maintain a warm blood metabolism.
Meanwhile, Ornitisian groups such as Triceratops and Hadrosaurs lost their metabolism rapidly. As a result, they are cold-blooded animals.
Metabolism in animals refers to how much energy is expended in order for their bodies to function normally. A higher metabolism requires more energy, which means the animal can be more active but must eat enough food to maintain its metabolism.
High metabolism produces heat that can keep animals warm, called endothermic. Meanwhile, the opposite of warm-blooded animals are cold-blooded (ectothermic) animals.
Cold-blooded animals need less oxygen and food. But they must regulate body temperature through daily behavior.
Since they do not generate their own heat, they maintain their body temperature by bathing in the sun or hiding in the shadows.
“Birds inherit very high metabolisms from their ancestors, the dinosaurs,” said Jasmina.
Researched Through Fossil
Collect Science AlertIn her research, Jasmina calculated the metabolic rate of dinosaurs through their fossils. “Metabolism is about how effectively we convert the oxygen we breathe into the chemical energy that powers our bodies,” says Jasmina.
This conversion process creates by-products that interact with proteins, sugars, and body fat and form stable chemical wastes. Warm-blooded animals need a higher metabolism to power themselves.
Jasmina then compared the amount of respiratory waste found in the bones of 55 living species that were the object of her research. He and his colleagues were then able to scale the waste down to metabolic rates.
Then, they used it to calculate the metabolic rate of extinct animals.
“This is really interesting to us as paleontologists. The question of whether dinosaurs were warm-blooded or cold-blooded is one of the oldest in paleontology. Now, I think we have a consensus that most dinosaurs were warm-blooded,” he said.
(lth)
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