Just how different was the world a few hundred million years ago? Would a T-Rex be able to breathe our air? What would we feed it? etc, etc…
I’ve always wondered if the lack of symbiotic bactieria would be fatal for cloned extinct animals–my impression from college biology was always that complex interactions with very specific bacteria were crucial to the digestive systems of many animals–but perhaps that is only herbivores.
Well, first off, T. rex isn’t quite that old; 83 million to 65 million years ago is more the correct time frame.
It was warmer during that time than it is now, though that warm period lasted well into the Tertiary Period as well. Oxygen content of the atmosphere was thought to be much higher than it is today, so breathing and strenuous activities might be somewhat problematic for such a large carnivore. CO[sub]2[/sub] levels were also apparently two to three times higher. What effects all that may have had on physiology I’ll leave to the physiologists.
Food-wise, a T. rex would probably be able to eat pretty much anything around now (though it would likely take more individual animals to feed one…).
Wouldn’t intestinal bacteria already be inside the animal’s gut? I think the problem would be modern bacteria that the T-rex isn’t prepared for.
Well, there would surely be plenty of people food.
I thought the gut bacteria comes from the mother, but I’m not 100 percent sure. If so, this could be a major problem with bringing back extinct animals.
I’m pretty sure that your gut is sterile before you are born. I belive it is not uncommon for kids to poop in their amniotic sac before they are born. You get your intestinal flora through the food you eat.