Daily Dino Fact: You Gotta Have Heart!
Sunday, February 14th, 2010
You have my heart.....wait, wait, give that back, I need it!!!
Since today is Valentine’s Day in some parts of the world, I thought it would be a perfect time to find out about dinosaur hearts!
Well, guess what? We don’t know much for certain about dinosaur hearts. Since hearts are soft tissue, they don’t generally preserve as fossils. However, in the year 2000, scientists in North Carolina discovered a fossilized heart in the remains of a 60 million year old Thescelosaurus neglectus nicknamed “Willo”. They used a computer tomography (CT) scanner to look inside a grape-fruit sized, reddish brown clump in the dinosaur’s chest. What they discovered was a four-chambered heart, more like a human or bird than a lizard.
So, what does that tell us? The scientists claim that it supports the thinking that many dinosaurs were warm-blooded, active animals. The CT scans have revealed other shadow and shapes that may turn out to be other fossilized organs as well. It seems like there is always something new to find out about dinosaurs! Science rocks!!
~ModCeno
