Re: The Right-to-Left Shunt of Crocodilians Serves Digestion (body fat)

[Ottawa Paleontological Society <paleo@ncf.ca>]

This made me wonder about body fat:
With the exception of preflight juveniles (which often outweigh their 
parents) and premigratory birds, most species don't put on weight. This is 
true even in areas where a lot of climatic stress can be anticipated.

Presumably, this has to do with population specific highly optimisation of 
weights for flight efficiency, predator evasion etc.

I don't have many lizards in my ecozone but I get the impression that they 
tend to grow larger instead of putting on large amounts of body fat (as many 
mammals do).

Were there similar pressures controling optimum weight among Dinosaurs? With 
the exception of large whithers is there any way to infer the amount of body 
fat that would have been carried by an animal? Is this really a relevant 
question given the fairly short adult lifespans infered for many species?

S!,

-Jonas Weselake-George




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Hope, Sylvia" <shope@calacademy.org>
To: "DML" <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Friday, February 08, 2008 8:53 PM
Subject: RE: The Right-to-Left Shunt of Crocodilians Serves Digestion


> Birds lost it right about the time the first bird got up and tried to fly 
> off
> on a full stomach.
>
> > Birds have lost the shunt capability present in crocodiles and reptiles
>
> - SH.