The Paleo-Diet: Dinosaurs Lose Weight in New Study

The fact that bones have curves has now thrown a curveball into calculations of dinosaur weight, researchers say.

New estimates suggest dinosaurs may have been lighter than once thought, scientists explain.

With the rare exceptions of fossilized scraps of skin, feathers, bristles and other relatively soft tissues, all that remains of most extinct creatures are their skeletons. One way that investigators seek to learn more about these lost animals is to deduce their weight from their bones.

Continued: http://www.livescience.com/24958-dinosaurs-lose-weight.html

Diet Season: Dinosaurs Slim Down in New Analysis

Dinosaurs have shed some extra pounds just in time for beach season, with a new analysis suggesting the mighty sauropod previously known as Brachiosaurus weighed tens of tons less than earlier estimates.

Artists' renderings of dinosaurs have long been plagued by discrepancies, with some depictions larger and heftier than others.

"The whole point is we were trying to get around the guesswork" of artistic reconstructions, study researcher Bill Sellers, of the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, told LiveScience. The researchers found that among the artists, "the ones reconstructing their dinosaurs as quite skinny are more right."

Continued:  http://www.livescience.com/20767-dinosaur-weight-estimates.html

Why Some Animals Are Fatter Than Others

Humans are often obsessed with their weight, but nature seems to know exactly how fat each animal on the planet should be. The perfect weight depends on how each species solves the problem of avoiding both starving to death and being killed by predators, new research suggests.

The study, published in The American Naturalist, explains how these causes of death often exert opposite pressures on animals. Storing a lot of fat, for example, helps animals survive periods without food but also slows their running speeds and so makes getting caught by a predator more likely.

Animals can be stronger to compensate, but the energetic costs of extra muscle mean that the animal would starve more quickly during a food shortage.

Continued:  http://www.livescience.com/18054-animals-fatter-survival.html