"Dinosaur Heresies" inconsistency?

[Chris Dreher <cmd11@po.cwru.edu>]

        I am new to the dinosaur list and am an amateur.  I read Robert 
Bakker's "Dinosaur Heresies" and am left with one major question.  I sifted 
through the list's WWW page looking to see if the question had already been 
posed and answered but I did not find it.  Please, no Bakker flame replies, I 
read through enough of those already on the list's WWW page.  I recognize that 
he represents just one view.
        Anyways, Bakker claims that Archosaurs were the group that crocodiles, 
pterodactyls, and dinosaurs evolved from (page 416) and that "crimson 
crocodiles" were early Archosaurs.  This relationship with dinosaurs is 
diagrammed on page 417.  He then states that for Erythrosuchus (presumably a 
"crimson crocodile") "the case for high metabolism was every bit as conclusive 
as it was for the advanced protomammals" (page 422).  He then uses this to 
argue that if the ancestors of dinosaurs had a high metabolism, then dinosaurs 
and pterodactyls must have had a high metabolism to wrest control from their 
high metabolism ancestors and their high metabolism competitors, the 
"proto-mammals."  However, this line of thinking also would make one think that 
crocodiles would also have a high metabolism.  However, Bakker himself argues 
that crocodiles not have a high metabolism early in the book.  To confuse the 
picture even more, the diagram on page 456 shows the "crimson croc" as a cousin 
to the dinosaurs and pterosaurs with a single common ancestor, not as an 
ancestor (or close relative to that ancestor).  Am I missing something here?

Thanks,
Chris Dreher
---
Chris Dreher             :  "When you kill a man, you're a murderer.
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