Cold-blooded animals grow bigger in the warm on land, but smaller in warm water

Date:

February 16, 2015

Source:

University of Queen Mary London

Summary:

Scientists studying arthropods, the group of cold-blooded animals that includes crabs and insects, have found that individuals within species living on land tend to grow to a larger size in the warm and nearer the equator, but that the reverse is true of species found in water.

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Dinosaurs Were Warm-Blooded Reptiles: Mammal Bone Study Sheds Light On Dinosaur Physiology

ScienceDaily (June 28, 2012) — A study with extant mammals refutes the hypothesis on which the assumption that dinosaurs were ectotherms was based.

The work was carried out by researchers from Institut Català de Paleontologia (ICP) and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). It has been published in Nature.

The study analysing the lines of arrested growth (LAG) in the bones of around a hundred ruminants, representative of the specific and ecological diversity of that group of mammals. The results show that the presence of these lines is not an indicator of an ectothermic physiology (does not generate internal heat), as had previously been thought, since all warm-blooded mammals have them. The study therefore dismantles the key argument of the hypothesis that dinosaurs could have been cold-blooded reptiles.

The work was carried out by Meike Köhler, ICREA researcher and ICP palaeontologist; Ronny Aanes, researcher from the Norwegian Polar Institute; Nekane Marín, PhD student at the UAB and Xavier Jordana, lecturer of postgraduate studies at same university.

Read more:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120628130647.htm