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Monday, July 5, 2010

Why Were Dinosaurs So Big?


The size and the weight of the dinosaurs are huge and no doubt that there have to be reasons for this. Dinosaurs like brachiosaurus and diplodocus were 50 tons in weights, while the fierce T. Rex was 7 to 8 tons. From the remainsof the dinosaurs, we can say that they were gigantic in size and ever since no other living being of this size has ever existed.

There are some theories which talk about the reasons for the dinosaurs to be huge and hefty. The first theory says that the dinosaurs were huge because of the vegetation during that era. In the Mesozoic era, which started with Triassic era and lasted till the Cretaceous era, 65 million years ago, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was higher when compared to the present times. As the carbon dioxide levels were high, the vegetation provided all kinds of food to the dinosaurs and this excess of food might have made them huge in size. However, this theory does not seem to be realistic enough.

The second theory claims that the hugeness of the dinosaurs must have been a defense mechanism against the predators. To a certain extent this theory seems acceptable as large herbivores flourished and were nearly not preyed upon by predators.

The third theory makes things complicated. Paleontologists who studied dinosaurs say that they were cold blooded based on two reasons. The first reason is related to the metabolism. If the dinosaurs were warm blooded, they would have had internal combustion and died instantaneously. The second reason that the scientists claim is that no modern-day warm blooded mammal living on land comes anywhere close to the size of a dinosaur. Scientists believed that dinos were cold blooded, but when they were large in size, they could regulate their body temperature. So, basically the size of the dinosaur was supposed to be a by-product of being cold blooded. However, this theory does not sit well with all scientists as many claim that dinos were warm blooded and not cold, as suggested by this theory.

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