GORGIA: Dinosaurs were warm-blooded animals just like today’s mammals, according to a scientist who analyzed their metabolism using body mass and growth rates obtained from fossils of species including Tyrannosaurus rex.
Paleontologist Michael D’Emic took issue with the conclusion of other researchers last year that dinosaurs were neither cold-blooded nor warm-blooded, but had a metabolism somewhere in between.
D’Emic said that the main point of his study was that the dinosaurs that had been studied so far were on average as warm-blooded as mammals live today. He said that the 2014 study under-estimated dinosaur growth rates and should have analyzed dinosaurs statistically within the same group as today’s birds.
