Can we keep a dinosaur in the modern world?

With the release of the movie "Jurassic World 3", this series of movies that has lasted for nearly 30 years has once again set off a wave of public attention to dinosaurs. People have once again raised the classic question: Can we revive dinosaurs like in the movies? With the current level of technology, it is impossible to extract dinosaur DNA from the dinosaur blood in the stomach of a mosquito and then revive it as in the movie in the short term.

With the advancement of human technology, perhaps in the near future, we can bring dinosaurs back to the world. If dinosaurs are really resurrected, will everything be fine? In fact, resurrection is only the first step. Next, you have to keep the dinosaurs well.

The first problem is breathing. In the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods when dinosaurs were active, the average atmospheric oxygen content was lower than it is now (21%), but the carbon dioxide concentration was 4-5 times higher than it is now. Therefore, to resurrect a dinosaur, we must first enable it to breathe in the existing atmospheric environment, otherwise it will have to live in a special cabin for the rest of its life. It is unrealistic to change the existing atmospheric composition. Of course, if human technology can achieve the step of resurrecting dinosaurs, it should not be difficult to slightly modify the dinosaur's genes to help it adapt to the current high-oxygen and low-carbon environment.

Next, we need to solve the problem of food. The earth today is not short of areas with lush vegetation such as forests and grasslands, but among the plants in these areas, flowering angiosperms account for the vast majority. However, the earliest angiosperm we have discovered is the Liaoning ancient fruit from the early Cretaceous period 125 million years ago. If we resurrect herbivorous dinosaurs such as Triceratops, Ankylosaur, Parasaurolophus, and Pachycephalosaur that lived in the late Cretaceous period, then there should be no problem for them to eat modern plants, after all, angiosperms were already everywhere when they lived.

Dinosaur model, picture from Tuchong.com

But if we restore herbivorous dinosaurs from the Jurassic period, such as Brachiosaurus and Stegosaurus, we will have to prepare food for them separately. Because at that time, ferns and gymnosperms dominated the world, and angiosperms rich in alkaloids were a poison to them. In the areas where these dinosaurs lived, it would be more appropriate to plant some conifers and tree ferns. The tender leaves on the tall tree crowns were the favorites of long-necked sauropod dinosaurs such as Brachiosaurus and Brontosaurus. In addition, some cycads and herbaceous ferns can be planted under the trees. These low plants can meet the needs of Stegosaurus and Hypsilophodon.

After solving the problem of herbivorous dinosaurs eating, let's look at carnivorous dinosaurs. If we resurrect the Velociraptor (actually it should be called Velociraptor) in the Jurassic movie, this is not a difficult problem for small theropod dinosaurs with a body size of one or two meters. Common livestock such as chickens, ducks, pigs, and sheep can be used as staple food.

Of course, how can these small characters of one or two meters satisfy human curiosity? Tyrannosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus, Spinosaurus and other giants with a length of more than 12 meters must be the must-haves in the list of dinosaur resurrection. However, feeding these giants is a headache. Take Tyrannosaurus as an example. Its main prey is the Triceratops, which is 7 meters long and weighs 5 tons. Among the living land animals, only rhinos and elephants are close to this size, but they are all protected animals. There are not many of them, let alone being used as food. So if you want to feed these big guys, you can only feed them with dinosaurs themselves. Hadrosaurs and ceratopsians will become the main force in the menu.

In addition, we also need to consider the climate factors of the dinosaurs' living environment. In the movie, in order to limit the contact between dinosaurs and the real world, the park was opened on two small islands near the equator in the Pacific Ocean, which are under the jurisdiction of Costa Rica. The real dinosaur family is spread all over the world. If the dinosaurs we resurrect are more diverse, then in the tropical climate environment alone, some dinosaurs that once lived in high latitudes, such as Cryolophosaurus, will have "acclimatization problems".

To solve this problem, we need to establish several nature reserves for dinosaurs around the world and place dinosaurs from the same era and region together to form a natural ecological community. Of course, the area of ​​this area must be much larger than the island in the movie. Because a Tyrannosaurus Rex alone requires a territory of more than 100 square kilometers, which is almost twice the area of ​​the island where the dinosaurs lived in the movie.

If we want to achieve the above conditions, the investment of manpower and material resources will certainly be an astronomical figure. I think no country in the world would be willing to be taken advantage of without any benefits.

However, if we can domesticate and breed dinosaurs into an industry, these "huge meat mountains" will become an important source of meat for people, and the motivation to resurrect dinosaurs may be greater. Because no one doesn't want to taste the taste of dinosaur meat.

Speaking of this, I think everyone in front of the screen, like me, wants to know what dinosaur meat tastes like?

We all know that dinosaurs did not all become extinct, and one of the theropod dinosaurs evolved into birds, so people would think that dinosaur meat tastes like chicken. At most, the muscle fibers of some large dinosaurs are rougher, so they may taste like ostrich meat!

However, the truth is not as simple as you think. A study published in the journal Science in 2007 took the famous Tyrannosaurus Rex as the subject and explored what the muscle protein of Tyrannosaurus Rex was like.

Scientists analyzed the fossil bones of Tyrannosaurus Rex and used mass spectrometry to reconstruct some Tyrannosaurus protein fragments, or peptides. Some of these peptides are related to chicken proteins, while others seem to be related to proteins of amphibians such as frogs or salamanders. So the conclusion that "dinosaurs taste like chicken" is questionable, at least frog and salamander tastes must be added.

Moreover, the ancestors of birds are only theropod dinosaurs, which are distantly related to the more numerous sauropod dinosaurs such as Brachiosaurus and Diplodocus and the ornithischian dinosaurs such as Stegosaurus and Ceratops, so the texture and taste of the meat of these dinosaurs may not be like chicken. These dinosaurs mainly feed on plants and move slowly, so their muscles are full of "slow muscle fibers". These muscles use blood oxygen to react with glucose in the blood and can release energy smoothly, so they look red and are called red meat. Therefore, the taste of these herbivorous dinosaur meat may be closer to beef and mutton, which are also red meat, but it may also taste like reptiles such as crocodiles and lizards. And these red meat dinosaurs may also have various unique and delicious flavors due to the different plants they feed on.

As for what dinosaur meat tastes like, you will have to wait until scientists actually resurrect dinosaurs in the future so that you can taste it for yourself.

This article is a work supported by Science Popularization China Starry Sky Project

Author: Liu Sen

Reviewer: Wang Yuan (Director of the Paleozoological Museum)

Produced by: China Association for Science and Technology Department of Science Popularization

Producer: China Science and Technology Press Co., Ltd., Beijing Zhongke Xinghe Culture Media Co., Ltd.