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Birds' Warm-Bloodedness Probed
Birds' Warm-Bloodedness Probed
3/16/94
NEW YORK (AP) -- Birds of a feather got warm-blooded on their own
rather than inheriting it from dinosaurs, a researcher suggests.
Bones from birds that lived more than 70 million years ago
showed features characteristic of cold-blooded animals, said
Anusuya Chinsamy of the University of Pennsylvania. So birds
apparently became warm-blooded after these species lived, said
Chinsamy, who reports the findings with co-authors in Thursday's
issue of Nature.
But John Horner, curator of paleontology at the Museum of the
Rockies, part of Montana State University in Bozeman, said too
little is known about the meaning of the bone features to draw
conclusions.
Chinsamy said her findings challenge the idea that modern birds
inherited warm-bloodedness from dinosaurs. That has formed one
argument in favor of warm-bloodedness in dinosaurs, she said.
And since the birds in the study had feathers, birds apparently
became warm-blooded after acquiring feathers rather than before, as
had been proposed, she wrote.