Coprolite

Coprolite              Fossilized excrement, fecal matter, or dung that, depending on the animal that left it behind, may contain whole organisms, appendages, bone fragments, plant remains, seeds, or even pollen. Coprolites record the diets (types of food), feeding behaviors (did the animal eat juveniles or adults or grasses or woody plants), digestive system function, and habitats of prehistoric animals (wetland, woodland, upland, desert, pelagic ocean, etc.). Analysis of coprolite composition can tell paleontologists not only what the animal ate but also its feeding behavior. For example, if a coprolite is rich in calcium and phosphorus that are found in bones, sinew, and claws, the depositing animal was likely a carnivore, either a predator or scavenger. But if the fossilized feces consist of partially digested plant material, the animal was most likely an herbivore. The term was coined from two Greek words: kopros, meaning dung, and lithikos, meaning stone, in 1829 by William Buckland (1784-1856), a noted British fossil hunter, clergyman, and Oxford professor of geology and mineralogy. Combined, we get fossilized feces.

Fun Stuff: Here’s an amazing story about a dinosaur dump. An exceptionally large coprolite discovered in Saskatchewan, Canada, at the Eastend Fossil Research Station provided paleontologists with direct evidence of dinosaurian food consumption activity. The specimen was found in the 65-million year old Frenchman Formation. The Saskatchewan coprolite was an elongated, fractured mass of rock that measured about 17 x 6 x 5 inches. About 200 associated fragments weathered downslope from the larger mass and would have contributed to the original volume of the feces, estimated to have been about 2½ quarts. The specimen contained fragments of shattered bone; its great size distinguished it as the largest individual carnivore/scavenger (depending or which paleontologist you are inclined to believe) coprolite yet described. Although determining the identity of the species of animal that produced a coprolite is usually problematic, several clues indicate a tyrannosaur origin, especially the large size of the deposit and the geologic and temporal contexts in which the coprolite was found, near an almost complete tyrannosaur fossil. Of the crocodilian species and carnivorous dinosaurs documented in the Frenchman Formation, Tyrannosaurus rex was the most likely suspect capable of producing such an incredible fecal log. Microscopic analysis of the distribution of bone fibers and blood vessels in the shattered bone fragments in the coprolite indicated that the digested animal was a young herbivorous dinosaur that was likely about the size of a cow. The remarkable state of preservation of the fossil probably was facilitated by flooding on the ancient coastal lowland plain on which the fecal mass was deposited and rapid burial of the largely intact feces. A fascinating photo of that coprolite can be found at: http://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/paleochron/29_e.php

More Fun Stuff: Numerous coprolites from Shasta ground sloth, a long extinct North American herbivore that was as large as an Alaskan brown bear, have been found in Rampart Cave in the lower Grand Canyon, which is now part of the arid Mojave Desert. Analysis of the ground sloth  coprolites revealed that 10,000 to 15,000 years ago the environment supported single-leaf ash and juniper trees, ephedra (or Mormon tea), shad scale shrubs, cactus, globe mallow, and even aquatic plants. Environments supporting that vegetation today can only be found at elevations 3,000 or more feet higher than the cave where the fossilized dung was discovered, indicating climate change had occurred in the interim. Interestingly, even though sloths were slow moving and lived in Southwestern areas inhabited by the ancient ones, no evidence has been found that they were hunted by humans. Perhaps something in their diet made their flesh unpalatable. And you thought paleontologists played no role in the analysis of climatic change, human-animal interactions, or genetic changes over the life of a population. Who says geoscience doesn’t deal with fascinating shit?