Large plant-eating sauropods may have been the culprits for the extinction of the dinosaurs because of the greenery they consumed. [uux.cn]

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)

據英國《每日郵報》報道，一些主流科學家表示，恐龍排放了太多的甲烷氣體，因此可能導致了氣候變化。

圣安德魯斯大學的格雷姆·魯克斯頓教授說，大型的蜥腳類食草動物可能是氣候變暖的罪魁禍首，因為它們消耗了太多的綠色植物。

其中的一種阿根廷恐龍，體重90噸，身長140英尺（約43米），一天要吃掉半噸的食物。

格雷姆的研究團隊計算出，所有恐龍每年一共產生5.2億噸甲烷，比今天所有的甲烷來源產生的加起來還要多。

他們認為，如此大量的甲烷氣體足以導致地球變暖，而且氣候變暖導致的后果慘重，恐龍也因此滅絕。