Cold Dinosaurs Resembled Warm Dinosaurs

Cold dinosaurs were just like warm dinosaurs, scientists have found.  Species living in the Antarctic, with up to six months of winter darkness, show no major differences in bone structure than those who lived in temperate climates.  This was a surprise that falsified earlier studies.  Whatever adaptations the high-latitude dinosaurs had did not show up in their bone structure.

Holly Woodward, Montana State doctoral candidate, examined bone tissues from Australian dinosaur fossils that were thought to reside within the Antarctic Circle when the creatures lived.  The bones of the dog-sized ornithopods and theropods studied showed annual growth rings, like those of temperate-climate dinosaurs, but no evidence of hibernation.  “If we were trying to find evidence of dinosaurs doing something much different physiologically, we would expect it to be found in dinosaurs from an extreme environment such as the South Pole,” she said. “But based on bone tissues, dinosaurs living within the Antarctic Circle were physiologically similar to dinosaurs living everywhere else” (source: PhysOrg).  The paper by Woodward and colleagues was published in PLoS One.¹

Well-known dinosaur researcher Jack Horner commented, “I think the most important finding is that polar dinosaurs don’t seem to be any different than any other dinosaurs in respect to how their bones grew.”  Woodward found a way to credit the unexpected finding to evolution: “This tells us something very interesting; that basically from the very start, early dinosaurs, or even the ancestors of dinosaurs, evolved a physiology that allowed an entire group of animals to successfully exploit a multitude of environmental conditions for millions of years.”  See also the 03/29/2004 entry.

Update 08/09/2011: PhysOrg reported the discovery of multiple trackways of polar dinosaurs in Victoria, Australia.  The tracks were found in a flood plain.  According to the article, this indicates it was “period of pronounced global warming, about 105 million years ago.”

1. Woodward, Rich, Chinsamy and Vickers-Rich, “Growth Dynamics of Australia’s Polar Dinosaurs,” PLoS ONE 6(8): e23339. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0023339.

Let’s correct that last sentence:  This tells us something very interesting; that basically from the very start, early evolutionists, even the Father of evolutionary theory, came up with a plot line that allowed an entire group of scientists to successfully exploit a multitude of contradictory data for 150 years.

The millions of years are fiction.  Wouldn’t dinosaurs living near the South Pole for millions of years develop some spectacular changes?  Wouldn’t they show a gradation in features from temperate to antarctic latitudes?  They didn’t.  Evolution wins anyway.  A neutral observer might think creationists could score a point here, that the pre-Flood climate was more uniform, but no; evolutionists have a wild card: the ability to invoke miracle talk.  From the very start, Woodward tells us, dinosaurs “evolved a physiology that allowed an entire group of animals to successfully exploit a multitude of environmental conditions for millions of years.”

Yes, children; dinosaurs evolved their own physiology.  They got together and had an engineering session.  They reasoned together, croaking that if they would just develop certain features of their bones and musculature and other systems, they could wander all over the earth and thrive for millions of years.  And you, too, children, can follow their example.  Just DON’T call it INTELLIGENT DESIGN!  That is forbidden!  Now, go out and evolve yourselves.  Pick your mutations very carefully with your eyes blindfolded and your ears covered up.  If you win the lottery, you can live at the Sahara or Antarctica without changing clothes.  Good luck!