The morphology of the inner ear has made it possible to estimate the temperature of many very ancient animal fossils.
This is one of the most burning questions in our evolutionary history: when did the ability to keep our body temperature at a constant high level first appear? Called more learnedly homeo-endothermy, this property is shared by almost all mammals (with the exception of the naked mole-rat) and birds.
Warm-blooded species generally move faster, farther, and are more active overall. They can also live in more varied climates and would thus be better equipped when the planetary climate evolves, in particular when it cools. There also seems to be a link, still poorly understood, between this metabolic mode and the development of a large brain.
“The origin of mammalian endothermy is one of the great unsolved mysteries of paleontology.recalls the Dr Keneth Angielczyck, paleontologist at the Field Museum in Chicago. Many different approaches have been used to predict…
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