Balance of nature: food supply (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, October 22, 2019, 15:53 (1859 days ago) @ David Turell

Giant dinosaurs had special plant food:

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6463/291

"Summary
Sauropod dinosaurs were the biggest creatures ever to have thundered across Earth. Researchers have long wondered how these beasts managed to bulk up to the weight of more than 10 African bull elephants on a spartan diet of prehistoric greens. Many herbivores today grow fat on energy-rich grasses, but these and other nutritious flowering plants didn't become common until near the end of the dinosaurs' reign. Now, researchers think they have glimpsed the answer: a surprisingly nutrient-rich plant still living today that could have been a mainstay of these dinosaurs' diets, and turtlelike beaks that buttressed sauropods' peglike teeth as they relentlessly stripped foliage from plants.

More info:

https://uncommondescent.com/evolution/did-the-mega-dinosaurs-grow-so-big-on-a-living-fo...

From the article:

"Horsetails appeared to be poor fodder in previous tests, which simply burned the plants to measure carbon content, Gee says. Instead, her team adapted the Hohenheim gas test, a method for assessing the quality of fodder for farm animals. They fermented modern horsetails for 3 days to simulate the journey through a sauropod’s gut and measured the volume of gas produced—an indicator of energy content. The researchers were astounded to find that horsetails released more energy than any other plant group, including 16 modern grasses. Equisetum is rich in protein, they say, and far more nutritious than the ferns, cycads, and conifers common in the dinosaur era. Gee argues that horsetails by rivers and lakes would have offered sauropods, especially young ones, “a plentiful, accessible, and extremely nutritious food.'”

Comment: This shows how God set up econiches for balance in nature. Special plants for giant dinosaurs, milkweed for monarchs. The bush of life is an absolute requirement for the evolutionary appearance of humans. Perhaps dhw will understand this explanation as to why God took all that time to reach humans. He seems confused to me.