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T-Rex problems (i.imgur.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/4chan@lemmy.world
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[–] 18 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (7 children)

I'll defer to actual paleontologists (or anyone who drops links), but my guess is T-Rex could go a month without food easy. Most modern large reptiles typically go a long time between meals.

Edit: following the intense scholarship in this thread, I have changed my stance. T-Rex probably would not survive a month without food (or water). BUT ALSO, the entity setting the rules and betting 500 mil on it surviving is going to know that. So the Dino's getting fed either way.

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I'm also no dinologist, but wouldn't the T-Rex be used to higher mix of oxygen in the atmosphere? I wonder if it would just pass out from hypoxia

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I thought O2 was higher during the time of the dinosaurs? Maybe that was earlier... I don't remember when the time of the big bugs was.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    Big bugs were in the carboniferous, about 350-300 million years ago.

    Dinos didn't evolve until about 240 million years ago, and didn't take over the world until about 200 million years ago. T Rex evolved quite late as far as non-avian dinos go, only about 68 million years ago.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Unlike modern reptiles, the T-rex was warm blooded, much like their close relatives birds, so their metabolic rate would be higher than, say, crocodiles, lizards, turtles, etc. Their food needs would be way higher than cold blooded reptiles, so a month without food would be more challenging. Might survive a month if it gorged itself beforehand, but quite likely not.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    There are some scaling issues I think.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Achully, these days scientists believe they would be feathering issues.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Feathers don't mean there aren't scales as well, especially just protofeathers. Think pangolin?

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I set up a scaling joke. While I appreciate your pedantry, I hope you enjoyed the jokes.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Dinosaurs were not reptiles. Reptiles already existed when dinosaurs evolved and there are completely different evolutionary lineage.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I'm just copy & pasting Wikipedia;

    Dinosaurs (including birds) are members of the natural group Reptilia. Their biology does not precisely correspond to the antiquated class Reptilia of Linnaean taxonomy, consisting of cold-blooded amniotes without fur or feathers. As Linnean taxonomy was formulated for modern animals prior to the study of evolution and paleontology, it fails to account for extinct animals with intermediate traits between traditional classes.

    But reptiles is more a culturally based category than a strictly defined biological class, so you might prefer a definition that excludes dinosaurs, and that's fine. I'll admit, it seems odd to class birds as reptiles, and strictly speaking if you exclude birds you should exclude dinos too.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Here's the thing. You said "dinosaurs are reptiles."

    Are they in the same class? Yes. No one's arguing that.

    As someone who is a scientist who studies dinosaurs, I am telling you, specifically, in science, no one calls dinosaurs reptiles. If you want to be "specific" like you said, then you shouldn't either. They're not the same thing.

    If you're saying "reptile class" you're referring to the taxonomic grouping of Reptilia, which includes things from snakes to turtles to lizards.

    So your reasoning for calling a dinosaur a reptile is because random people "call the scaly ones reptiles?" Let's get fish and pangolins in there, then, too.

    Also, calling someone a human or an ape? It's not one or the other, that's not how taxonomy works. They're both. A dinosaur is a dinosaur and a member of the reptilia class. But that's not what you said. You said a dinosaur is a reptile, which is not true unless you're okay with calling all members of the reptilia class reptiles, which means you'd call microraptors, jackdaws, and other birds reptiles, too. Which you said you don't.

    It's okay to just admit you're wrong, you know?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    What I also find interesting is that the nearest extant animals to birds are crocodilians. Both belong to the archosaur clade, even if there's around a 240 million years gap between them.

    As you say, birds can be classified as belonging to reptiles under the cladistic route, but they're quite radically different to the reptiles that live today, so are seen as not really reptilian. It's not surprising, seeing that the link between crocodiles, true reptiles in all senses, and birds were the dinosaurs, who disappeared 65 million years ago. A whole lot of evolutionary change in that time.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    Depends on how pedantic you want to be regarding the term "dinosaur" Dimetrodon and plesiosaurs for instance are reptiles but if you buy a pack of plastic dinosaurs for your kid the odds are damn near 100 percent those are gunna be in there. Not applicable to the T-Rex I know but it's like the whole debacle of "what counts as a berry" thing. Like sure a blackberry is an aggregate drupe but it is culturally a valid answer to "what's your favorite berry?"

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (1 child)

    That is not even a little true. If it was your phylogeny would mean crocodillians aren't reptiles.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    It isn't my philosophy, it's sciences. What do you want about?

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    It is your phylogeny (not philosophy), you're proposing a different phylogeny than science does.

    Archosaurs, such as crocodillians, diverged from a common ancestor BEFORE birds/dinosaurs did, from other reptiles.

    In order for what you're saying to be true, we'd have to exclude crocodillians from being reptiles. No standard definition would not include crocodillians as reptiles. In modern taxonomy, we use what are called monophyletic groups to determine relatedness. Because of this, birds and all dinosaurs fall under the clade archosauria, and are therefore reptiles.

    In essence, what you're proposing would be like saying "Your cousin is a reptile, but not your brother"

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    I'm not sure it would be possible for such large animals, they require a lot more energy to keep the heat up due* to larger skin surface.
    I could be wrong though, happy to be corrected.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago

    Square-cube law would be in effect - for large animals, things that scale with mass or volume outpace things that scale with surface area. Though what result that would have in this case I can't quite puzzle out.

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