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Palaeobiology

101 uses for fossilized faeces

Nature volume 393, pages 629–630 (1998)Cite this article

Fossils are familiar objects by which we can trace the evolution of life on Earth and document past climatic events. Less familiar are the so-called trace fossils — traces that once-living animals have left behind them as a result of something they did during life. On page 680of this issue, Chin et al.1 describe a piece of fossilized dung from Canada that, from its large size and context, can be reliably assigned to a very large carnivorous species of dinosaur, possibly Tyrannosaurus rex.

Trace fossils are examples of fossilized behaviour, and, if they can be assigned to a fossil species, this tells us something about the behaviour of that species. For terrestrial vertebrates, the most common trace fossils are footprints, and many examples of dinosaur2, mammal3 and even human4 footprints have been found. Not as well known — and for obvious reasons much less glamorous — are fossilized faeces or pellets, usually referred to as coprolites. There are many examples of coprolites from mammalian or avian carnivores5, but few have ever been found that could be assigned with any certainty to carnivorous dinosaurs.

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Figure 1: Photomicrograph of a rodent femur digested by a crocodile.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Department of Palaeontology, Natural History Museum, London, SW7 5BD, UK

    Peter Andrews & Yolanda Fernandez-Jalvo

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  1. Peter Andrews
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  2. Yolanda Fernandez-Jalvo
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Andrews, P., Fernandez-Jalvo, Y. 101 uses for fossilized faeces. Nature 393, 629–630 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/31356

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