Bonn scientists simulate dinosaur digestion ...(er an animal is the larger the amount of...),Health

At the same time there is a lower limit to the density of population. If this is undercut, the species dies out: 'In this case diseases can rapidly wipe out the whole stock. Moreover, finding a mate becomes difficult,' Martin Sander explains. An animal like the 100-tonne argentinosaurus should have normally not had this 'minimum population density, actually it should not have been able to exist. But there are hypotheses for this apparent paradox: for example the giant dinosaurs presumably had a metabolism that was lower than that of mammals. In this context it is unclear how nutritious the plants were that formed their diet.

This question is being investigated by Dr. Jrgen Hummel in conjunction with Dr. Marcus Clauss from the University of Zurich. 'We assume that the herbivorous dinosaurs must have had a kind of fermenter, similar to the rumen in cows today.' Almost all existing herbivores digest their food by using bacteria in this way. The panda is the exception. Because the panda is not like this its digestion is inefficient. It stuffs bamboo leaves into its mouth all day long, in order to meet its energy needs, despite the fact that it does not move about much, thereby saving energy.

Jrgen Hummel transforms glass syringes into simple fermenters, which he fills with bacteria from the sheep's rumen. 'These micro-organisms are very old from an evolutionary point of view; we can therefore assume that they also existed in the past,' he explains. To the mix of bacteria he adds dried and ground food plants: grass, foliage or herbs which still form part of animals diet, and for comparison equisetum, Norfolk Island pine or ginkgo leaves, i.e. parts of plants which have been growing for more than 200 million years on earth. The gas formed during the fermentation process presses the plunge
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