Los Angeles Dinosaurs' gassy guts may have contributed to global warming tens of millions of years ago, according to a new study that finds a group of plant-eating dinosaurs could have produced about as much methane as all of today's natural and man-made sources of the greenhouse gas.
British researchers reported in Tuesday's Current Biology that methane emissions from sauropods far outstripped those of today's cattle, goats and other cud-chewing mammals.
Sauropods were a diverse bunch of plant-eating dinosaurs, known for their small heads and giant bodies with long necks and tails.
An average-sized sauropod, such as Apatosaurus louisae, once popularly known as brontosaurus, could weigh 19,958kg, making it several times bigger than an elephant.
Like many modern herbivores, scientists think, sauropods probably hosted a diverse community of microbes in their guts to help digest their food, producing methane in the process.
