mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:
beneficii wrote:
I doubt it. Oxygen levels remain way too low, and are much lower than were in the time of the dinosaurs.
This is precisely the reason why we don't have things like giant bugs or anything else like that anymore.
The mean O2 didn't explode until the end of the Cretaceous, the Jurassic had only slightly higher O2 than now, and the Triassic has only about 4/5 the free oxygen we have now. All three periods supported giant reptiles. Reptilian (possibly some early amphibian) lungs were the first "modern" efficient lungs, therefore oxygen intake shouldn't be too drastically different than mammals of comparable size. Now giant insects, like during the Carboniferous, would need extra oxygen since they still rely on the old "book lung" model.
As for climate change, mammals are poorly adapted to hot environments. Having an active heat regulation system tends to "overheat" in higher temperatures because it's more costly to cool than it is to heat from an energy/resource standpoint. To heat up, a mammal merely needs to burn calories through movement, to cool down the body must release water as a coolant which is almost as costly calorie wise and also costs the water.
Animal evolution was my special interest from about 5-9 years old. I used to love this stuff until I realized we were on the path back to that era...