Comment on Bring them back!!!
otter@lemmy.ca 5 days agoCrocodiles may have also adapted over time to deal with the changes in our atmosphere, while the dino DNA would not have gone through those changes. They could handwave that problem by saying they combined it with some other DNA or modified it themselves (better hemoglobin?)
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 days ago
Was curious so I tried to find historical Oxygen levels by century. With the current oxygen level being around 20.9% and decreasing to effectively 17% around a mile in altitude, (say Denver) we adapt to 4% oxygen level without death. So if dinosaurs are similar in breathing to humans, I’d say with no scientific backing beyond just speculation, they should be fine.
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leftzero@lemmynsfw.com 5 days ago
Current living dinosaurs are much more efficient at extracting oxygen from air than practically anything else in the planet.
Birds’ve got a unidirectional respiratory system that ensures oxygenated air is constantly flowing through their lungs (unlike, for instance, us mammals, who must empty our lungs of spent air before we can fill them again), and a system of air sacs to keep the air constantly flowing.
While fossil records of the earliest dinosaurs show no evidence of air sacs, later ones do, suggesting that bird-like respiratory systems evolved multiple times in parallel in different branches.
Sauropods in particular might have had even more complex air sac systems than modern birds, which could explain how they managed to grow so large (i.e., they were full of air, and might have been even more efficient when it comes to breathing, though their long necks might have offset the balance in the opposite direction).
Dinosaurs would have been perfectly fine with current oxygen levels.
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 days ago
Didn’t know that, thanks for the cool information. Although you long neck comment just makes me think of this now
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leftzero@lemmynsfw.com 5 days ago
Bird skeletons (or simply plucked birds) are seriously disturbing.
It’s incredible how much work feathers do when it comes to bird appearance.
Makes one wonder.
T-Borb