ArticlePloS one2013
Maximal aerobic and anaerobic power generation in large crocodiles versus mammals: implications for dinosaur gigantothermy.
Article in PloS one, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed.
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- Neonatal state and degree of necessity for parental care in Maiasaura based on inferred neonatal metabolic rates.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- The living dinosaur: accomplishments and challenges of reconstructing dinosaur physiology.Biology letters · 2025Review
- Pseudosuchian thermometabolism: A review of the past two decades.Anatomical record (Hoboken, N.J. : 2007) · 2025Review
- Integrative paleophysiology of the metriorhynchoid Pelagosaurus typus (Pseudosuchia, Thalattosuchia).Anatomical record (Hoboken, N.J. : 2007) · 2025Article
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- Evolutionary process toward avian-like cephalic thermoregulation system in Theropoda elucidated based on nasal structures.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
- Whole-body endothermy: ancient, homologous and widespread among the ancestors of mammals, birds and crocodylians.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2022Article
- Defibrillate You Later, Alligator: Q10 Scaling and Refractoriness Keeps Alligators from Fibrillation.Integrative organismal biology (Oxford, England) · 2021Article
- The evolution of mechanisms involved in vertebrate endothermy.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Review
- Shrinking dinosaurs and the evolution of endothermy in birds.Science advances · 2020Article
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- Response to formal comment on Myhrvold (2016) submitted by Griebeler and Werner (2017).PloS one · 2018Article
- Metabolism of the spade-headed Amphisbaenian worm lizard,Saudi journal of biological sciences · 2018Article
- Evidence of Reproductive Stress in Titanosaurian Sauropods Triggered by an Increase in Ecological Competition.Scientific reports · 2017Article
- Long-term surgical anaesthesia with isoflurane in human habituated Nile Crocodiles.Journal of the South African Veterinary Association · 2017Article
- Vascular patterns in the heads of crocodilians: blood vessels and sites of thermal exchange.Journal of anatomy · 2016Article
- A structure-function analysis of the left ventricle.Journal of applied physiology (Bethesda, Md. : 1985) · 2016Article
- Article
- The role of skeletal-muscle-based thermogenic mechanisms in vertebrate endothermy.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2015Review
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Abstract
Inertial homeothermy, the maintenance of a relatively constant body temperature that occurs simply because of large size, is often applied to large dinosaurs. Moreover, biophysical modelling and actual measurements show that large crocodiles can behaviourally achieve body temperatures above 30°C. Therefore it is possible that some dinosaurs could achieve high and stable body temperatures without the high energy cost of typical endotherms. However it is not known whether an ectothermic dinosaur could produce the equivalent amount of muscular power as an endothermic one. To address this question, this study analyses maximal power output from measured aerobic and anaerobic metabolism in burst exercising estuarine crocodiles, Crocodylusporosus, weighing up to 200 kg. These results are compared with similar data from endothermic mammals. A 1 kg crocodile at 30°C produces about 16 watts from aerobic and anaerobic energy sources during the first 10% of exhaustive activity, which is 57% of that expected for a similarly sized mammal. A 200 kg crocodile produces about 400 watts, or only 14% of that for a mammal. Phosphocreatine is a minor energy source, used only in the first seconds of exercise and of similar concentrations in reptiles and mammals. Ectothermic crocodiles lack not only the absolute power for exercise, but also the endurance, that are evident in endothermic mammals. Despite the ability to achieve high and fairly constant body temperatures, therefore, large, ectothermic, crocodile-like dinosaurs would have been competitively inferior to endothermic, mammal-like dinosaurs with high aerobic power. Endothermy in dinosaurs is likely to explain their dominance over mammals in terrestrial ecosystems throughout the Mesozoic.
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