Re: Hands and brains

[T.L.G.vanderLinden@student.utwente.nl (Timothy van der Linden)]

Reply to: David and Ric

>>> >>Maybe they had a smaller brain because they were (coldblooded?) reptiles
>>> >>instead of warmblooded mammals.
>>> >
>>> >This is in great debate right now. Depends on which camp you are in. Dr
>>> >Bakker beleives they were mostly warm blooded based partly on the care of
>>> >young and other factors I can't remember right now. I tend to lean twords
>>> >his beliefs.
>>> >Ric
>>> 
>>> They did lay eggs, I think? And they did not have hairs like most mammals.
>>> Did dinosaurs have scales like reptiles?
>>> 
>>
>>But Ric is just saying that they may have been warm
>>blooded - he's not saying they may have been mammals.
>>Birds, for instance, are warm blooded, but they're
>>not mammals.

I was not argueing that, I just wanted to show a way why they could have
been warmblooded while having a small brain. For thay way it was important
to show they where reptiles first. 
Since reptiles are originally coldblooded, I figured that if they became
warmblooded, it would only be logical due to their increased size.
So that means they were shifting from cold- to warmblooded and not that they
had been warmblooded all the time.
So then their smaller brain would have been a remainder of earlier
coldblooded days, where it would have been more difficult to keep a larger
brain working.

(Mammals, birds and reptiles are the members of the vertebrates. So that
implies that they have some similarities.)

>Anatomicly (?) dinosaurs are 99%+ built like birds, especially the
>carnivors. The way the legs work, Feathers are really scales, the need for
>grining stones in the gullet. etc....

I didn't know that birds used sand? in their "stomach/gullet". But in what
way do bird and mammal legs differ from reptiles?

Timothy