Inferring the physiological regimes of extinct vertebrates: methods, limits and framework

What can we know of the physiological regimes of ancient vertebrates? Essential to the exploration of this question are several epistemological tools: (i) a phylogenetic framework for interpreting whole animals and individual tissues, (ii) reliable knowledge of variation in populations and among climates and geographies, (iii) an understanding of phenotypic variation during ontogeny and between sexes, and (iv) a sense of the patterns of body...