The Reports of Dinosaurs Dying of Farts Are 
Greatly Exaggerated
by PZ Myers
Pharyngula
Posted on: May 7, 2012 
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/05/the_reports_of_dinosaurs_dying.php

No, dinosaurs did not fart themselves to death.
This is what happens when you get your information
from Fox News.

    Dinosaurs may have farted themselves to
    extinction, according to a new study from
    British scientists.

    The researchers calculated that the
    prehistoric beasts pumped out more than 520
    million tons (472 million tonnes) of methane a
    year -- enough to warm the planet and hasten
    their own eventual demise.

    Until now, an asteroid strike and volcanic
    activity around 65 million years ago had
    seemed the most likely cause of their
    extinction.

So I read the paper. The researchers didn't say
that at all. There is nothing about extinction in
the paper; it would have been ridiculous and I was
prepared to dismiss such a claim without even
reading the paper (the Jurassic lasted 55 million
years, the Cretaceous 80 million, with dinosaurs
farting away throughout). But the paper makes no
such claim, instead suggesting that the mass of
herbivores during the Mesozoic would have made a
substantial, but stable, contribution of
greenhouse gases to the atmosphere that may have
been partially responsible for the warmer, moister
climate of the era and the greater primary
production.

    Take together, our calculations suggest that
    sauropod dinosaurs could potentially have
    played a significant role in influencing
    climate through their methane emissions. Even
    if our 520 Tg estimate is overstated by a
    factor of 2, it suggests that global methane
    emission from Mesozoic sauropods alone was
    capable of sustaining an atmospheric methane
    mixing ratio of 1 to 2 ppm. Equally, our
    estimate may be understated by a similar
    factor, (i.e. possibly supporting 4 ppm
    methane). In the warm wet Mesozoic world,
    wetlands, forest fires, and leaking gasfields
    may have added around another 4 ppm methane to
    the air. Thus, a Mesozoic methane mixing ratio
    of 6-8 ppm seems very plausible.

    The Mesozoic trend to sauropod gigantism led
    to the evolution of immense microbial vats
    unequalled in modern land animals. Methane was
    probably important in Mesozoic greenhouse
    warming. Our simple proof-of-concept model
    suggests greenhouse warming by sauropod
    megaherbivores could have been significant in
    sustaining warm climates. Although dinosaurs
    are unique in the large body sizes they
    achieved, there may have been other occasions
    in the past where animal-produced methane
    contributed substantially to global
    environmental gas composition: for example, it
    has been speculated that the extinction of
    megafauna coincident with human colonisation
    of the Americas may be related to a reduction
    of atmospheric methane levels.

See? A reasonable conclusion, not Fox News
sensationalism.

But here's the information you really wanted to
know: they estimate that a medium-sized sauropod
would have farted out 2675 liters of gas a day.
Happy now? Impressed?

References: 

Wilkinson DM, Nisbet EG, Ruxton GD (2012) Could
methane produced by sauropod dinosaurs have helped
drive Mesozoic climate warmth? Current Biology
22(9):292-293.

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