The Sauropod (Long-Necked Dino) Had Unusual Lungs Capable Of Getting Oxygen During Inhaling And Exhaling

"Dinosaur opera must have been wild!"

Ayoub

• Published in Interesting
• November 28, 2022

A study conducted on the evolution of gigantism takes a closer look at the cross-current gas exchange and voluminous lungs of the Sauropod. After the recent discovery of avian-like lungs in saurischian dinosaurs, the study focuses mainly on the physiological implications of these factors.

Scaling a bird to the same body height as the 12-ton Sauropod and comparing their predicted metabolic rate of growth and body temperature would give us similar results. However, if the body mass increases, the results would increase exponentially. 

Increasing the body temperature would require adjustments in order to avoid overheating despite the consistency of the avian-like lung structure with a bradymetabolic-gigantothermic or tachymetabolic-endothermic model. The study suggests that the evolution of gigantism got facilitated by a unique sauropod structure/function unit.

A Redditor who goes by the username u/Tangerine_Darter made a post on the r/todayilearned subReddit where they shared a particularly intriguing fact about the Sauropod, which is a long-necked dinosaur. The user received many engaging reactions to their post and a lot of funny jokes as well that you might enjoy. 

Scroll down to check out the full Reddit post, and scroll a little further to read the comments from the original post. 

Here's the original post by Reddit user u/Tangerine_Darter:

Here's how the Reddit community reacted to u/Tangerine_Darter's post:

"A body that big, even the relaxed metabolism of a lizard makes them effectively warm-blooded..."

The perks of having ADHD.

You can use it as an answer for pretty much anything.

Birds are living dinosaurs, just tinier.

It would be if that could be a thing you can learn.

You can't learn that, but at least there's something similar.

Regardless if you're exhaling or inhaling, there's always an exchange.

If you can't prove it are you even a real mammal?

That's where it belongs.

It must go on for hours and days.

"There's nothing that switches off the diffusion of oxygen as soon as you start exhaling."

Even when you're exhaling, you're still getting oxygen from the blood.

It's a feature that pre-dates dinosaurs.

That would definitely be a terrible thing to have to deal with.

That's some weak sh*t bro.

The size of dinosaurs is not due to their massive oxygen intake.

Normally you can't get that information from just the bones.

That's how they came up with that conclusion.

Other methods could exist, but this is the most common one.

The Sauropod would be a pain in the butt to deal with if it didn't go extinct. Imagine getting chased by an animal that can get oxygen in both inhalation and exhalation. They would chase you forever and would probably die from shortness of breath.

Thankfully, we don't have to ever deal with that problem, but it would have still been interesting if we had similar creatures running around, just not as massive. If you enjoyed reading this, make sure to check out similar content on our platform.

Ayoub