RATE OF FOOD SUPPLY

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Another argument raised against warm-blooded dinosaurs and applied particularly to the large herbivorous sauropods centres around the ability of the animal to provide sufficient food to provide the extra energy required to maintain body temperature. This argument tends to rely on observations of the teeth and jaw. In some dinosaurs eg diplodocids , they had small heads and no grinding teeth, and so (it is claimed), could not possibly consume enough food. Some modern large flightless birds have exactly the same problems, but are unquestionably not only alive but also warm-blooded. They cope by modifications to food processing after it has been swallowed. Similar modifications likely to have taken place in the dinosaurs are discussed in more detail under ' Dinosaur Feeding '.
Another fact to be considered is that the enormous size of the sauropods gave them a very small body area to body mass ratio. Heat loss was thus greatly reduced and they would have required much less food on a weight basis than smaller animals, just as an elephant only requires about one twentieth as much relative food as a rabbit.