Dental News - Scientists use teeth to measure temp of dino blood

Dental Tribune International

Tue. 28 June 2011

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NEW YORK, USA: New findings using dinosaur teeth could help to explain how the reptiles were able to regulate their body temperature, researchers from the California Institute of Technology in the US have reported. By measuring subatomic particle concentrations in fossil teeth in two of the largest dinosaur species, they claim to have found that the animals’ body temperatures were much higher than that of other reptiles and comparable to mammals.

Since the first species was officially classified in 1824, anthropologists have quarrelled over whether dinosaurs were cold- or warm-blooded. The latest research suggests that they were warmer than originally expected and probably able to reduce body heat through special physiological features. Scientists, however, were not able to determine the body temperature of the creatures except through indirect methods, such as measuring the spacing of dinosaur tracks or the growth rate of bones.

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The new approach developed by geochemist Robert Eagle and geologist Prof. John Eiler is able to determine body temperature to within one or two degrees, the researchers say. It measures the concentration of rare carbon and oxygen particles that clump and form minerals called bioapatites,a process that is deoendent on heat. The researchers analysed the clumps in 11 teeth of the Brachiosaurus brancai and Camarasaurus species found in different locations in the US and Tanzania.

“Nobody has used this approach to look at dinosaur body temperatures before so our study provides a completely different angle on the long-standing debate about dinosaur physiology,” Eagle commented.

He and Prof. Eiler announced that they would be applying the method to other dinosaurs and extinct animals, including mammals, in order to find out more about how they evolved

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