Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-t5pn6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T23:04:19.426Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Terramegathermy in the Time of the Titans: Restoring the Metabolics of Colossal Dinosaurs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2017

Gregory S. Paul  and
Guy D. Leahy
Gregory S. Paul
Affiliation:
3109 N. Calvert St. Side Apt., Baltimore MD 21218 and 2405 Bailey Hill Rd., Eugene OR 97405
Guy D. Leahy
Affiliation:
3109 N. Calvert St. Side Apt., Baltimore MD 21218 and 2405 Bailey Hill Rd., Eugene OR 97405
Get access

Extract

Among dinosaurs, megadinosaurs (those over one tonne) have been considered among the best candidates for having had low metabolic rates (LoMRs). Spotila et al (1991) argued that big dinosaurs were gigantotherms that shared thermal characteristics with the large leatherback sea turtle, and Dodson (1991) suggested that giant dinosaurs lived in the slow lane compared to giant mammals. Coulson (1979), Bennett (1991) and Ruben (1991) restored big dinosaurs as “good reptiles” powered by bursts of reptilian hyperanaerobiosis rather than the sustained tachyaerobiosis that powers birds and mammals. Farlow (1990) suggested that large dinosaurs were “damned good reptiles” with fluctuating metabolic rates (MRs), and in 1993 he argued that dinosaurs used a combination of rapid reproduction and intermediate metabolic rates (InMRs) to grow bigger than land mammals. All the above workers, and McNab (1983) and Dunham et al. (1989), have modeled big dinosaurs as LoMR or InMR inertial homeotherms that maintained constant body temperatures on a daily basis.

Type
Adaptations and Behavior
Information
The Paleontological Society Special Publications , Volume 7: Dino Fest , 1994 , pp. 177 - 198
Copyright
Copyright © 1994 Paleontological Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bartlett, D. and Bartlett, J. 1992. Africa's Skeleton Coast. Natl. Geog. 181(1):54–85.Google Scholar
Bennett, A. F. 1991. The evolution of activity capacity. J. Exp. Biol. 160:1–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Case, T. J. 1978. On the evolution and adaptive significance of postnatal growth rates in the terrestrial vertebrates. Quart. Rev. Biol. 53:243–282.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Choy, D. S. J. and Altman, P. 1992. The cardiovascular system of Barosaurus: an educated guess. The Lancet 340:534–536.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Coulson, R. A. 1979. Anaerobic glycolysis: the Smith and Wesson of the heterotherms. Pers. Biol. Med. 22:465–479.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Currie, P. J. 1983. Hadrosaur trackways from the lower Cretaceous of Alberta. Acta Palaeont. Polonica 28:(1-2):63–73.Google Scholar
Currie, P. J. and Dodson, P. 1984. Mass death of a herd of ceratopsian dinosaurs. 61–66. In Reif, W.-E. and Westphal, F. (eds.), Third Symposium on Mesozoic Terrestrial Ecosystems. ATTEMPTO-Verlag, Tubingen.Google Scholar
Daniels, C. B. and Pratt, J. 1992. Breathing in long necked dinosaurs; did the sauropods have bird lungs? Comp. Biochem. Physiol. 101A:43–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deeble, M. and Stone, V. 1993. Giant crocodiles - deadly ambush in the Serengeti. Natl. Geog. 183(4):94–109.Google Scholar
Dodson, P. 1991. Lifestyles of the huge and famous. Nat. Hist. 100:30–34.Google Scholar
Dunham, A. E., Overall, K. L., Porter, W. P. and Forster, C. A. 1989. Implications of ecological energetics and biophysical and developmental constraints for life-history variation in dinosaurs. Geol. Soc. Amer. Special Paper 238:1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Else, P. L. and Hulbert, A. J. 1987. Evolution of mammalian endothermic metabolism: leaky membranes as a source of heat. Amer. J. Physiol. 253:R1–R7.Google ScholarPubMed
Farlow, J. O. 1990. Dinosaur energetics and thermal biology. 43–62. In Weishampel, D. B., Dodson, P. and Osmolska, H. (eds.), The Dinosauria. University of California Press, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Farlow, J. O. 1993. On the rareness of big, fierce animals: speculations about the body sizes, population densities, and geographic ranges of predatory dinosaurs. Amer. J. Sci. 293-A:167–199.Google Scholar
Grenard, S. 1991. Handbook of Alligators and Crocodiles. Krieger Publishing Co., Malabar.Google Scholar
Haynes, G. 1991. Mammoths, mastodonts, and elephants. Cambridge University, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Heinrich, B. 1993. The Hot-Blooded Insects. Harvard University Press: Cambridge.Google Scholar
Horner, J. and Gorman, J. 1988. Digging Dinosaurs. Workman Publishing, New York.Google Scholar
Jansky, L. 1965. Adaptability of heat production mechanisms in homeotherms. Acta Univ. Carolinae Biol. 1:1–91.Google Scholar
Leahy, G. D. 1991. Lamellar-zonal bone in fossil mammals: implications for dinosaur and therapsid paleophysiology. J. Vert Paleont. 11(Suppl. to 3):42A.Google Scholar
Ledger, H. P. 1968. Body composition as a basis for a comparative study of some East African mammals. 289–310. In Crawford, M. A. (ed.), Comparative Nutrition of Wild Animals. Symposium of the Zoological Society of London 21.Google Scholar
Lockley, M. G., Houck, K. J. and Prince, N. K. 1986. North America's largest dinosaur trackway site. Geol. Soc. Amer. Bull. 97:1163–1176.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McNab, B. K. 1983. Energetics, body size, and the limits to endothermy. J. Zool. Lond. 199:1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Osborn, T. 1992. Overheated elephants. Nat. Hist. 101(7):2.Google Scholar
Owen-Smith, R. N. 1988. Megaherbivores, the Influence of Very Large Size on Ecology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paul, G. S. 1991. The many myths, some old, some new, of dinosaurology. Mod. Geol. 16:69–99.Google Scholar
Paul, G. S. 1994. Dinosaur reproduction in the fast lane: implications for size, success and extinction. 244–255. In Carpenter, K., Hirsch, K. and Horner, J. R. (eds.), Dinosaur Eggs and Babies. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Perry, S. F. 1983. Reptilian lungs: functional anatomy and evolution. Adv. Anat. Embryol. Cell Biol. 79:1–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reid, R. E. H. 1990. Zonal “growth rings” in dinosaurs. Mod. Geol. 15:19–48.Google Scholar
Ruben, J. 1991. Reptilian physiology and the flight capacity of Archaeopteryx. Evolution 45:1–17.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Seymour, R. S. 1976. Dinosaurs, endothermy and blood pressure. Nature 262:207–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spotila, J. R., O'Connor, M. P., Dodson, P. and Paladino, F. V. 1991. Hot and cold running dinosaurs: body size, metabolism and migration. Modern Geol. 16:203–227.Google Scholar
Varricchio, D. J. 1992. Taphonomy and histology of the Upper Cretaceous theropod dinosaur Troodon formosus. J. Vert Paleont. 13:99–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar