Jurassic Park Lied? Dinosaurs Were Warm Blooded, Says Research Conducted With Maiasaura

If you have watched the classic Jurassic Park or the latest Jurassic World, you would know that dinosaurs are these extinct giant cold-blooded reptile creatures that are scary and life-threatening for humans. However, today, there's a possibility that this mindset is way different from the fact that researchers found out recently. Dinosaurs are not cold-blooded reptiles.

'It was a lie!' Researchers find out dinosaurs have actually warm-blooded bodies using tech

Contrary to what people and experts first believed in, dinosaurs are not cold-blooded reptiles but actually, a warm-blooded creature that "sits at an evolutionary point between birds, which are warm-blooded, and reptiles, which are cold-blooded."

According to a study made by Robin Dawson, the person that conducted the research while she was a doctoral student in geology and geophysics at Yale University, the blood that runs into the physical body of dinosaurs tend to be warmer than the common belief.

Study shows that "the ability to metabolically raise temperatures above the environment was an early and evolved trait for dinosaurs."

Dawson and her team found out this fact when they tested eggshell fossils representing three major dinosaur groups, including ones more closely related to birds and more distantly related to birds.

Using "clumped isotope paleothermometry," the dinosaur fact was revealed

In the illustration, the image showed how the eggshell fossils where under a microscope using cross-polarizing light. With the process called "clumped isotope paleothermometry," the researchers were able to find out the temperature of the mother of the dinosaur eggshells that were tested.

"Eggs, because they are formed inside dinosaurs, act like ancient thermometers," said Pincelli Hull, an assistant professor at Yale University's Department of Geology and Geophysics, and a co-author of the study.

This is where they found out-- using tested eggshell fossils from a Troodon, a small, meat-eating therapod (the same family as the T-Rex); a duck-billed, plant-eating dinosaur called a Maiasaura; and a Megaloolithus, a sauropod known for its huge size-- that dinosaur eggshells were warmer than their environment, meaning that they can adapt to warmer places compared to other cold-blooded reptiles.

Dinosaurs first evolved feathers: here's why it's true

As also compared in the study of Dawson, now that dinosaurs are confirmed to be warm-blooded creatures, it will also support the current findings that dinosaurs first evolved their feathers.

According to Dawson, feathers are commonly the first thing that evolved in the bodies of dinosaurs since they need to adapt to the warm surroundings.

"It's possible that dense feathers were primarily selected for insulation, as body size decreased in theropod dinosaurs on the evolutionary pathway to modern birds," Dawson said. "Feathers could have then later been co-opted for sexual display or flying."

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