![]() Other studies have pointed to warm-bloodedness, like the finding that some dinosaur species lived year-round in the Arctic. Another study found that hadrosaurs, a group of duck-billed plant eaters, seemed to have body temperatures that were far too variable for the animals to be warm-blooded. For example, previous studies found that Stegosaurus, an ornithischian genus of armored plant-eaters, had an exceptionally low growth rate - a hallmark of a slow, cold-blooded metabolism. ![]() This data backs up findings from prior research. Related: Long-necked dinosaurs probably had even longer necks than we thought In an analysis of 55 living and extinct species (many of them dinosaurs), Wiemann and co-authors found that warm-bloodedness, which is currently only seen in mammals and birds, was quite widespread among dinosaurs, but that not all dinosaurs were warm-blooded. "Birds inherited their exceptionally high metabolic rates from their dinosaur ancestors, which is pretty cool," Jasmina Wiemann, currently a postdoctoral researcher at CalTech and lead author on a new study about dinosaur metabolisms, told Live Science. Instead of generating their own heat, they maintain their internal temperature by basking in the sun or hiding in the shade. Cold-blooded animals need less oxygen and food than endothermic creatures but have to regulate their body temperatures with behavior. The opposite metabolic strategy requires less energy to maintain and is known as cold-blooded, or ectothermic. As an added bonus, a high metabolism generates heat that keeps animals warm, hence the term warm-blooded, or endothermic. ![]() A higher metabolism - which requires more energy to maintain - means that an animal can be more active, but the animal has to eat enough food and breathe enough oxygen to keep its metabolic engine running. An animal’s metabolism refers to how much energy its body uses to carry out normal functions. ![]()
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