Common ancestor of dinosaurs four-legged and cold-blooded?

[bascule]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4532608.stm

[Mokele]

I love the false dichotomies. Either it was warm-blooded or it wasn't, ingoring the fact that monotremes and marsupials do not have full control over their body temperatures, which it turn proves the intermediates can exist. If it had a growth method like a reptile, it must have had a reptilian metabolism. Never mind that extant reptiles have a wide range of metabolisms and all show this growth method, and that nothing *specificially* links this sort of growth to ecotthermy.

 

It's interesting, but I think everyone leaps to conclusions too quickly about these sorts of things. I strongly suspect the metabolic diversity actually present in dinosaurs would shock even the most imaginative paleobiologist.

 

Mokele

[SkepticLance]

A view of dinosaur temperature control appearsed in New Scientist.

 

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9523?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=dn9523