Sauropod dinosaurs could have produced enough greenhouse gas methane with their flatulence to increase the planet’s temperature millions of years ago , causing their own “global warming,” according to a study published in the journal Current Biology .
Sauropods, known for their enormous size and long necks, were herbivorous dinosaurs that inhabited the planet 150 million years ago. Similar to today’s cows, they had methane-producing microbes in their digestive systems that helped them digest the plants they fed on. Now, a mathematical model has allowed Dave Wilkinson and his colleagues at Liverpool John Moores University (UK) to calculate that the gigantic reptiles produced more methane than all current natural and man-made sources combined.
To reach that conclusion, the scientists analyzed the methane production of different modern animals and created a mathematical equation that predicts how much methane an animal would produce, knowing its size. An average s auropod weighed 20,000 kilograms and lived in concentrations of one to several dozen adults per square kilometer. With these data, it is estimated that methane emission from sauropods could have reached up to 520 million tons per year. A very high figure if we compare it with those produced by current ruminants (cows, giraffes, goats, etc.), which are around 50-100 tons per year.
