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Dinosaurs may be partly to blame for a change in climate because they created so much flatulence, according to leading scientists, the Daily Mail reported.
Professor Graeme Ruxton of St. Andrews University, Scotland, said large plant-eating sauropods would have been the main culprits because of the huge amounts of greenery they consumed.
One of the animals, a 90-ton argentinosaurus, which measured 140 feet in length, would have consumed at least half a ton of food in one day.
The team calculated the animals would have collectively produced more than 520 million tons of methane a year -- more than all today's modern sources put together.
It is thought these huge amounts could easily have been enough to warm the planet. It is even possible that the climate change was so catastrophic that it caused the dinosaurs' eventual demise.
(China.org.cn May 8, 2012) |
據(jù)英國(guó)《每日郵報(bào)》報(bào)道，一些主流科學(xué)家表示，恐龍排放了太多的甲烷氣體，因此可能導(dǎo)致了氣候變化。
圣安德魯斯大學(xué)的格雷姆·魯克斯頓教授說(shuō)，大型的蜥腳類食草動(dòng)物可能是氣候變暖的罪魁禍?zhǔn)?，因?yàn)樗鼈兿牧颂嗟木G色植物。
其中的一種阿根廷恐龍，體重90噸，身長(zhǎng)140英尺（約43米），一天要吃掉半噸的食物。
格雷姆的研究團(tuán)隊(duì)計(jì)算出，所有恐龍每年一共產(chǎn)生5.2億噸甲烷，比今天所有的甲烷來(lái)源產(chǎn)生的加起來(lái)還要多。
他們認(rèn)為，如此大量的甲烷氣體足以導(dǎo)致地球變暖，而且氣候變暖導(dǎo)致的后果慘重，恐龍也因此滅絕。 |
