Re: history of the warm-blooded debate........

["Ralph Miller III" <gbabcock@best.com>]

> From: Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. <th81@umail.umd.edu>

> At 08:54 PM 5/19/98 -0600, Caleb wrote:
> >    Can anyone give me a history of how the proposal for dinosaur
> endothermy got started?

> Yes.  The "someone" is historian of Victorian science Adrian Desmond, and
> the place is this book:
> 
> Desmond, A.J. 1976. The Hot-Blooded Dinosaurs: A revolution in
> palaeontology.  The Dial Press.
> 
> Or you can find a copy of Owen's 1842 paper in which he coins the name
> "Dinosauria", and check out the final footnote.

I second that, and here provide some further background, taken from the
notes at the back of Pat Shipman's _Taking Wing: *Archaeopteryx* and the
Evolution of Bird Flight_:

"Who deserves priority for the warm-blooded dinosaur idea is a contested
point and the cause of bad feelings among a number of dinosaurologists. 
Some of the important and early papers exploring various aspects of the
idea are:

R.T. Bakker, "The superiority of dinosaurs," _Discovery_, 1968,
R.T. Bakker, "Dinosaur physiology and the origin of mammals," _Evol._,
1971,
R.T. Bakker, "Anatomical and ecological evidence of endothermy in
dinosaurs," _Nature_, 1972,
J. Ostrom, "Terrestrial vertebrates as indicator of Mesozoic climates," _N.
Amer. Paleo. Conv. Proc., 1970,
A.J. de Ricqles, "Evolution of endothermy: Histological evidence." "

-- Ralph Miller III     gbabcock@best.com