Re: NYT Follow-up on Scipionyx

["AJ & AJ Crowl" <ajcrowlx2@ozemail.com>]

Hi Dinolisters,

Ah, there's something wrong here....

----- Original Message -----
From: Larry Dunn <majestic_cheese@yahoo.com>
To: <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Friday, February 05, 1999 2:36 AM
Subject: NYT Follow-up on Scipionyx


>Following up on the article in last week's Science Times on Scipionyx
>the turbocharged coldblood, here's a letter from Julian Kane to the
>Science Times on the article (copyright in The New York Times, of
>course).
>
>                    *  *  *
>
>Dissecting Dinosaur Theory
>
>To the Editor:
>
>The remarkable baby Scipionyx dinosaur fossil showing well-preserved
>internal organs ("Turning Dinosaur Theory on Its Paleobiological
>Tail," Jan. 26) may help resolve the debate over whether dinosaurs
>were warmblooded or cold-blooded
[snip]
>What appears to be a heart is located in the photograph forward of an
>organ identified as a preserved liver.
>
>If the unidentified structure actually is a fossilized heart, careful
>analysis of its interior may reveal whether it is four-chambered, as
>are all living warmblooded vertebrates (birds and mammals), or
>three-chambered, as are all living coldblooded reptiles (crocodiles,
>lizards, snakes and lizards).
>
Three chambers in crocs? Sorry. Wrong. FOUR chambers with a valve between
two to let them mix the blood while the croc is underwater. Allows the croc
to use almost all the oxygen in its blood before resurfacing for a breath -
that and some tricks in croc haemoglobin.

>Short of finding some temperature-indicating structure in fossils and
>modern vertebrates that has not yet been discovered (Jurassic
>thermometers are highly unreliable) the tell-tale fossil heart of an
>extinct dinosaur may finally end the dinosaur body-temperature
>controversy.
>
>JULIAN KANE
>Great Neck, N.Y.
>
Sorry. Probably wrong on that score. So far all the [other] data saying
"cold-blooded" dinos has been shown to be wrong or ambiguous, like some of
the data usually marshalled saying "warm blooded". The issue is still open.
No case closed yet.

Adam
>
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>
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>==
>Larry
>"You are interested in the unknown, the mysterious, the unexplainable --
that is why you are here.  And now, for the first time, we are bringing you
the full story of what happened ... on that fateful day."
>http://members.tripod.com/~megalania/index.html
>
So why the post Larry?