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)

据英国《每日邮报》报道，一些主流科学家表示，恐龙排放了太多的甲烷气体，因此可能导致了气候变化。

圣安德鲁斯大学的格雷姆·鲁克斯顿教授说，大型的蜥脚类食草动物可能是气候变暖的罪魁祸首，因为它们消耗了太多的绿色植物。

其中的一种阿根廷恐龙，体重90吨，身长140英尺（约43米），一天要吃掉半吨的食物。

格雷姆的研究团队计算出，所有恐龙每年一共产生5.2亿吨甲烷，比今天所有的甲烷来源产生的加起来还要多。

他们认为，如此大量的甲烷气体足以导致地球变暖，而且气候变暖导致的后果惨重，恐龙也因此灭绝。