maurauder

Primarily is the key. I don't think any of the current experts think it was an all or nothing thing.

Some of the carnivores (dromeosaurs especially) would have almost had to have been warm blooded to keep up the activity level. The predator/prey ratios suggest warm blooded.

Some of the larger types (like the sauropods) may have had some kind of mass homeothermy going on... warm themselves up in the sun, then it takes hours and hours to cool down... a kind of fake warm bloodedness.

Comparing them to reptiles is a little misleading. Linnaean systeming isn't that accurate, and they were classified in the 19th century based on a scattering of bones.

Using Cladograms, we can set them in a group that lay eggs or give birth on land, then narrow that so that they are on a path with reptiles, then branch off to Sauria (crocs, pterosaurs, dinosaurs, and birds), then dinosauria (common ancestors to dinos and birds), etc.

But you prolly already know all this, so I ain't helping too much, am I?

Actually, I'm all kinds of nerd...

Short answer is, back in the mid 80s or so I read a book called Riddle of the Dinosaur (John Wilford) on the train to Disneyland 'cause I was bored. It described deinonychus as hopping around on one foot, holding onto prey while kicking the crap out of it; and all the childhood dinosaur love that little boys have, was reopened. One of my email addresses is dnnychus, actually, speaking of nerds.

That lead to Horner, Bakker, etc., and now I read dino books and Stephen Jay Gould as a... hobby, I guess. I've heard Jack Horner lecture twice (tyrannosaur as scavenger, which rules by the way) and got him to autograph a copy of Dinosaur Lives for me.