Can you shoot a dinosaur with a heat seeking missle?

Question

I got in a fight with my brother while watching Jurassic park. I think you can do it because they have some heat even though they're cold blooded. It's not like they're rocks.

Answer 1

It depends.

Reptiles warm themselves up by basking.

The heat they absorb will be stored in them for a while, so if their environment becomes cooler than them it could be possible in my opinion.

Answer 2

Most dinosaurs became extinct about 3,000 years ago or so.  I guess this is just a contemplative question; because it seems the bigger question would be:  Why would you even want to shoot any dinosaur that might still be around with anything?

Answer 3

no. dinosaurs are extinct!

Answer 4

Well, dinosaurs being ectotherms, or cold-blooded maintain their heat by utilizing external sources such as sunning or bathing.  If the dinosaur were to have JUST been sunning and then immediately ran into a much cooler environment, it would generate a temperature difference with the surroundings.  Even if it were lying on a rock sunning itself, it would have a heat signature.

However, I think what is being missed here is the method by which a heat seeking missile homes in on a target.  There doesn't need to be a grand difference in temperature with newer heat seeking missiles as they are designed to be quite a bit picky so as to avoid being fooled by chafs and flares and other methods of tomfoolery by the target such as getting the missile to lock on to the sun, etc.  These things aren't necessarily locking onto "heat" so to speak: rather they are utilizing infrared (often in two colors) to identify a target.  The dinosaur would have enough IR to obtain a lock, especially if the missile were utilizing Imaging Infrared which uses a focal array to act much like a digital camera "seeing" in the infrared spectrum.  So would it work?  Sure it would.

But I gotta tell ya with the array of missiles out there I'd rather have laser guided to hit a dino with.  I think you win this argument, but it just wouldn't be the most efficient way to get em.