Eggshell geochemistry reveals ancestral metabolic thermoregulation in Dinosauria.

ABSTRACT: Studying the origin of avian thermoregulation is complicated by a lack of reliable methods for measuring body temperatures in extinct dinosaurs. Evidence from bone histology and stableisotopes often relies on uncertain assumptions about the relationship between growth rate and body temperature, or the isotopic composition (δ¹⁸O) of body water. Clumped isotope (Δ₄₇) paleothermometry, based on binding of ¹³C to ¹⁸O, provides a more robust tool, but has yet to be applied across a broad phylogenetic range of dinosaurs while accounting for paleoenvironmental conditions. Applying this method to well-preserved fossil eggshells demonstrates that the three major clades of dinosaurs, Ornithischia, Sauropodomorpha, and Theropoda, were characterized by warm

SUBMITTER: Dawson RR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7021498 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature