
Dinosaurs
Were Dinosaurs Warm or Cold-Blooded? The Mesothermy Evidence
For decades, paleontologists sorted life into two metabolic boxes — warm-blooded mammals and cold-blooded reptiles — and debated which box dinosaurs belonged in. The answer, emerging from bone slices, isotope chemistry, and growth-rate analysis, is that most dinosaurs fit neither box. They occupied a metabolic middle ground that has no precise modern equivalent.