We used to think of dinosaurs as enormous reptiles, cold-blooded with scaly skin and monotone coloring.
But in recent years, we’ve learned that many dinosaurs were likely covered in vibrant feathers and were more closely related to birds than any modern lizards.
And many of those cold-blooded dinosaurs we thought basked in the sun to warm up, were instead warm or even hot-blooded creatures.
The journal Nature recently published a study where researchers used a novel technique to identify warm and cold-blooded dinosaurs. Their findings tell a new story of how these creatures lived and died. Researchers analyzed fossil specimens and measured the ratio of biochemical byproducts that resulted from breathing.
They then discerned which dinosaurs were warm and cold-blooded, finding in the fossil record that warm-blooded dinosaurs would breathe more than cold-blooded.
“This metabolic symbol actually preserves quite well,” says study co-author Jasmina Wiemann, a molecular paleobiologist at Yale ...
