• Earthwormjim91@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Dinosaurs should still be fine. The oxygen concentration really applied to animals with passive breathing systems like insects. Insects don’t actually breathe, they sort of just let the air directly oxygenate their blood. They can’t regulate breathing faster when they need more oxygen.

    Dinosaurs have forced breathing through lungs. The blue whale is the largest animal to have ever lived including even the most massive dinosaurs, and blue whales still breathe air.

    There’s not much difference between a velociraptor and a modern bird of prey either, other than the teeth.

    • frezik@midwest.social
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      1 year ago

      They do need extra oxygen to do anything, though. They might be able to walk around, but they’ll tire quickly if they have to do any exertion.

      Whales don’t have to run on land, and the biggest ones have no predators besides humans.

      • Earthwormjim91@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        No that’s absolutely false too. Atmospheric oxygen was lower during the Jurassic and Cretaceous than it is today.

        It peaked during the Carboniferous period, and then started declining in the Triassic and bottomed out right around the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event 200MYA, then rapidly increased again. Dinosaurs became the dominant terrestrial species after this, and all of the huge dinosaurs lived during the Jurassic and Cretaceous.

        https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131118081043.htm

        Studies of air bubbles trapped in amber revealed atmospheric oxygen levels of 10-15% during the time the largest dinosaurs existed. We have 21% today.

        • WoahWoah@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Great, so they’d hyperventilate and keep getting dizzy. A bunch of hyper oxygenated, dizzy velociraptors. What could go wrong.