 These debates sparked interest in new methods for ascertaining the palaeobiology of extinct animals, such as bone histology, which have been successfully applied to determining the growth-rates of many dinosaurs.Today, it is generally thought that many or perhaps all dinosaurs had higher metabolic rates than living reptiles, but also that the situation is more complex and varied than Bakker originally proposed.For example, while smaller dinosaurs may have been true endotherms, the larger forms could have been inertial homeotherms, or that many dinosaurs could have had intermediate metabolic rates.