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Re: Bigger dinosaurs had warmer blood.

On Wed, 12 Jul 2006, Jura wrote:
--- "Richard W. Travsky" <rtravsky@uwyo.edu> wrote:
On Tue, 11 Jul 2006, Allan Edels wrote:
From Yahoo:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5166518.stm 

Bigger dinosaurs had warmer blood.

The bigger a dinosaur was, the warmer its blood, a
study of the big beasts' 
fossil remains shows.
[...]
But as dinosaurs got bigger, they became less
efficient at dissipating heat
and this helped to keep them warm anyway. This is
known as inertial 
homeothermy.
According to the scientists' equation, the
enormous sauropod Apatosaurus -
which at 13,000kg was among one of the biggest
dinosaurs - had a body
temperature of just over 40C. 

And the first thing that came to mind for me was how
DID they shed heat?

If they had to move fast to escape a predator, that
would have raised
their temperature even more...


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I'm thinking that this might have been the main
function of air sacs in dinosaurs (esp. large
theropods and sauropods).


In heat exchanger fashion? Are there any birds with air
sacs that would also function that way?

That aside, I doubt _Apatosaurus ajax_ ever had to
move fast to do anything.