Chapter 23, Problem 17TYK

Physiologists speculate about cardiovascular adaptations in dinosaurs—some of which had necks almost 10 m (33 feet) long. Such animals would have required a systolic pressure of nearly 760 mm Hg to pump blood to the brain when the head was fully raised. Some analyses suggest that dinosaurs’ hearts were not powerful enough to generate such pressures, leading to the speculation that long-necked dinosaurs fed close to the ground rather than raising their heads to feed on high foliage. Scientists also debate whether dinosaurs had a “reptile-like” or “bird-like” heart. Most modern reptiles have a three-chambered heart with just one ventricle. Birds, which evolved from a lineage of dinosaurs, have a four-chambered heart. Some scientists believe that the circulatory needs of these long-necked dinosaurs provide evidence that dinosaurs must have had a four-chambered heart. Why might they conclude this?