keannu
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Since animals lose body heat through surfaces, a higher surface-to-volume ratio would result in greater loss of body heat. This is ① why smaller animals lose more body heat. As a result, a mouse or a hummingbird must burn a lot of calories to maintain a constant body temperature. This is the main reason ② that, among warm-blooded animals, metabolic rate declines with increasing body size. Small mammals have evolved to produce relatively more body heat. Their faster metabolic rate means ③ what they do not live as long. Small animals tend to have shorter lives than large animals, and warm-blooded animals shorter lives than cold-blooded animals. Conversely, large animals can have warm bodies just ④ because they are large. Large dinosaurs, for example, were probably warm-blooded simply ⑤ because of their low surface-to-volume ratio.
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The two underlined sentences seem to be contradictory. The writer says "warm-blooded animals have shorter lives" at first, and says "large animals with warm bodies such as dinosaurs lived longer". Did the writer make a mistake?
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The two underlined sentences seem to be contradictory. The writer says "warm-blooded animals have shorter lives" at first, and says "large animals with warm bodies such as dinosaurs lived longer". Did the writer make a mistake?