New Research on Sauropod Gigantism: How Dinosaurs Became so Large

Sauropods were the largest animals in Earth's history, roaming the Earth millions of years ago and weighing up to 80 tons. Yet despite the wealth of evidence, these creatures still puzzle scientists. One mystery in particular was how these sauropods regulated their own body temperature. Now, scientists may have found out just that along with other clues to these large animals. They've summarized sauropod gigantism in a publicly available collection.

In order to understand these animals a bit better, the researchers took a look at their body size, performing calculations to check how they regulated their body temperature. In the end, the researchers found that the body temperature of these animals did not increase with body weight. Instead, the sauropods may have had an average body temperature of around 28 degrees Celsius; the upper limit for body temperature that can be tolerated by vertebrate species today is 45 degrees Celsius. This low body temperature, while not in line with today's endothermic vertebrates, is consistent with that of ectothermic monitor lizards.

Yet this isn't the only finding. The researchers also described a new method of determining the density of bone tissue and juxtapose sauropod data and results extrapolated for comparable endothermic mammals. While the bone structure and density of certain tissues of sauropods were similar to those of today's mammals, the results do not conclusively demonstrate that sauropods were endothermic animals.

The researchers also took a look at the reproductive biology of sauropods. It's possible that a high rate of reproduction contributed to the gigantism of the large dinosaurs. In fact, it's likely they laid a large number of eggs, though nothing exceeding 200 to 400 eggs for a sauropod weighing 75 tons.

This latest compilation of research reveals a bit more about these large dinosaurs. More specifically, it makes it available to the public and to dinosaur-lovers everywhere.

The findings are published in three separate papers in the journal PLOS One. You can read them here, here and here.