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The improbable endotherm: the energetics of the sauropod dinosaur Brachiosaurus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2016

Jan C. Weaver
Jan C. Weaver*
Affiliation:
Department of Entomology, 1–87 Agriculture Building, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65211
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Abstract

One testable hypothesis of the theory that dinosaurs were endothermic is the observation that sauropod dinosaurs were too large, their heads were too small, and their food was too indigestible for them to be warm-blooded. Calculations on the daily calorie requirements of the sauropod Brachiosaurus, adjusted for digestibility and the energetic cost of “free-living,” were compared with the caloric density of Late Jurassic food plants and the feeding rates of an elephant and a giraffe. Using Brachiosaurus as a model I concluded that endothermy in large sauropods (greater than 55 metric tons) was impossible. Depending on assumptions about feeding rates and the cost of free-living, endothermy in smaller sauropods ranges from improbable to impossible.

Type
Research Article
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , Spring 1983 , pp. 173 - 182
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

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