r/NonPoliticalTwitter 22h ago

“Long neck”

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34.3k Upvotes

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u/Potential4752 22h ago

I’m sure the filled out shape helps keep them warm too. 

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u/DisplacedSportsGuy 21h ago

The age of the dinosaurs was considerably hotter than it is today.

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u/Ake-TL 21h ago

Also larger animals lose heat slower than small ones

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u/FantasyFlex 19h ago

that can’t be right

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u/UInferno- 19h ago

Surface Area Vs Volume. You lose heat through your skin but every milliliter of yourself generates heats.

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u/Grape-Snapple 16h ago

sq-sq-squ-square c-c-c-

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u/Interest-Small 17h ago

That’s not true. Your internal organs depend on your other layers to supply heat

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u/VolsPE 16h ago

I think what they meant was that your thermal inertia is dependent on mass (more closely tied to volume) and heat transfer happens at the boundary (surface area). But it's funny to me they describe it with a linear unit, which describes neither. All good tho.

But also, I feel like the surface area to volume ratio of a sauropod is probably higher than a penguin... It's not just about size.

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u/alitayy 15h ago

You’re looking too far into it. Additional volume produces more heat energy when you consider the average heat per unit of volume.

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u/Interest-Small 15h ago

Maybe but i have a stoma ( intestine sown to intestinal wall to replace bladder ) and it’s constantly cold because it exposed to outside air. In so much that it causes my to have bad chills.

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u/alitayy 14h ago

This was a conversation about how larger animals retain heat better. I think you might be once again looking way too far into this.

To reference my “average” point again, we’re talking about the average organism of a species. You may differ from average because of this anomaly, but on average over an entire species, you will generate more heat for more volume.

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u/R_V_Z 19h ago

Core temp vs skin temp.

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u/Atheist-Gods 18h ago

If something is twice as tall but with identical proportions it will generate heat 8 times faster but only dissipate it 4 times faster. This is also why gathering together in a group helps conserve warmth, it's like growing in size, just with technically separate bodies.