Rare Fossil Shows Dinosaurs As Fast,...( ue to believe it's unlikely that birds ...)

The only living animals that have a lung structure similar to what is being found in dinosaurs, the researchers said, are the modern crocodilians. But that may be an evolutionary remnant of a physiology which once served a different purpose, they said. Prehistoric crocodilian species which are now extinct were more lightly built, fast animals that could stand upright on land and run.

The view of theropod dinosaurs that is emerging, the OSU researchers said, is reptiles that could save energy while idling but had the potential for enormous, sustained bursts of activity when needed. This was not a sluggard of a lizard.

"A lot of people who only see cold-blooded reptiles moving slowly in temperate zones have no concept of what they can do in warmer climates and how well they can function," Geist said. "Then if you add in the lung capacity that we're finding for meat-eating dinosaurs, what you have is a turbocharged reptile.

"If you could go back in time and saw one of them, that's probably the last thing you'd ever see."

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Contact: Terry Jones
jonest@bcc.orst.edu
541-737-6120
Oregon State University
21-Jan-1999