Slugs, Ants and Panda Dung Hold Clues to Greener Energy, Say Researchers

Researchers in Denmark are looking into how slugs, ants and pandas can help the world shift to climate-smart fuels, believing their unique abilities to break down dry plants hold key clues to boosting plant-based biofuel production.

The researchers at Aarhus University are participating in a three-year project where they investigate the digestive system of Portuguese slugs, leaf-cutter ants, and even pandas. Scientists have said of the research in a recent statement that there is “massive potential for large-scale sustainable production of biofuel”.

“[Pandas] eat plenty of bamboo, about 10 kilos a day … but within 12 hours, the ingested bamboo is out of the animal already,” says biologist Alberto Scoma to the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “We basically want to see what is happening in the guts – who and what exactly is breaking down the bamboo.”

Another study showed that, after feeding bacteria from panda dung bamboo, organisms quickly break down biomass into potential fuels such as ethanol and hydrogen. And because Pandas digest the bamboo within 12 hours, they don’t produce the greenhouse gas methane, unlike other farm animals.