Herbivorous birds usually
have less efficient digestion than mammals, they lack the specialized gut
adaptations of many mammals, e.g. ruminants. They excrete less waste at any one
time than a similarly sized mammal, but I think it would be more in total over a
time period. I think many herbivorous birds do have caeca though (blind
ending intestinal pouches with symbiotic bacteria/protists) to help them digest
cellulose more efficiently, probably also possessed by sauropods, and they grind
it up thoroughly in their gizzards. Sauropods definitely had these (evidence
from gastroliths). Most modern herbivorous birds rely more on rate of processing
of food through the gut than efficiency of digestion (this is why goose shit is
still green with chlorophyll). Dung eating to reprocess semi digested food has
always seemed a possibility for sauropods for me..., although I
think the urates would have to be moderately separate from the fecal mass
for this to be practicable (does it matter if an animal eats its own excreted
urates?).
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2001 9:53
PM
Subject: Re: dinosaur digestion
Greetings, I was reading The
Scientific American Book of Dinosaurs yesterday, particularly the illustration
demonstrating the size difference between an Argentinosaurus baby and an
adult. The caption points out that full adult size was achieved in only a few
decades. I also recall reading about how some researchers are puzzled over the
ability of the environment to support such large plant eaters(especially if
they were warm blooded). Could it be possible that dinosaurs were able to
digest their food more efficently than mammals? Could dinosaurs possibly have
converted more of what they ate into body tissue and excrete less waste than
mammals? Although I've
never really investigated animal waste to a great degree(insert sick joke
here), it seems that birds excrete less waste than mammals of similar size.
Has any research been done in this area? Or has this possiblity already been
ruled out? Thanks to whoever responds.
Brian
Buck "Just for the record, thirty years ago they never found any
corpse..." Raymond Burr: Godzilla 1985
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