Tambarikosy

Predictions of Thermoregulation in Dinosaurs When we think of reptiles, we think of scaly, cold-blooded creatures, usually relatively inactive between quick darts, often soaking up the sun. When we think of dinosaurs, we tend to think of huge, cold-blooded monsters, more likely feeding or fleeing, hunting or fighting. Dinosaurs were, of course, reptiles themselves; what should strike us about these stereotypic views, however, is perhaps not so much the different life-style we attribute to each, but something even less appreciable than a dinosaur’s habits: the widely shared assumption they were “cold-blooded”. Indeed, the reptiles from which they arose certainly must have been, but dinosaurs gave rise to a fully endothermic lineage – the birds. So where do dinosaurs fit in? Were they cold-blooded reptiles – like today’s snakes and lizards – or warm-hearted pioneers, like their avian successors?