Ancient marine reptiles, which cruised the seas while dinosaurs roamed the land, may have been warm-blooded, with some species able to maintain a body temperature as much as 20 degrees Celsius above that of the waters they swam in, a new study suggests.
The finding, reported in the June 11 Science, bolsters the notion that many marine reptiles had relatively high metabolic rates similar to those of modern-day tuna, says Christophe Lécuyer, an isotope geochemist at the University of Lyon 1 in Villeurbanne, France.
Log in
Subscribers, enter your e-mail address for full access to the Science News archives and digital editions.