Cold blood, hot skin

[John Conway <john_conway@mac.com>]

I was reading though an old favourite of mine, Dinosaur! by Dr David 
Norman (1991) when I came across this:

	"Indeed the larger a reptile is, the more difficult it becomes to 
use basking as a means of temperature control. One fact which is not 
often mentioned in the work of
Colbert, Cowles and Bogert on body temperature control in small and 
large alligators is that is that several of the larger alligators 
involved in their experiment apparently died of the effects of sunburn 
after prolonged exposure to the sun. Their skin actually began to bake 
rather than being able to pass the heat which was being absorbed 
directly into the blood and around the body."

Alligators presumably avoid this by swimming under water, or by finding 
shade.

Wouldn't this be a serious danger for a large cold-blooded dinosaur too? 
Would, say, a big cold-blooded sauropod have to  spend its life in shade 
to avoid "cooking" its own skin?




John Conway, Palaeoartist

"All art is quite useless." - Oscar Wilde

Protosite: http://homepage.mac.com/john_conway/