fossilised feces , aka “ coprolite , ” are an uncommon palaeontological find . But fossilized stern inside a ossified creature ? That ’s rarer , still , and why researchers are so mad about the pterosaur dodo pictured above .
The specimen dates back 146- to 161 - million years , to the Late Jurassic , and is exceptionally well preserved . Its soft tissues , admit its wing membranes , are in good cast , and its stomach is full of what paleontologists mean was probably its last repast . But what researchers are really excited about is a pair of masses locate behind the pterosaur ’s sacrum , nigh to where its cloaca would have been when it was alive . ( The cloaca is the multi - purpose posterior porta that modern birds , amphibious aircraft , and reptiles employment to copulate , urinate , and shite , among other matter . )
In the latest issue of the journal PeerJ , a team led by David Hone at Queen Mary University of London proposes that these raft are , in fact , two halves of one “ putative coprolite”—which is just a fancy way of saying “ fossilise poop , maybe ” :
This has burst in two , but the terminal end of the split up piece are largely straight and they are of the same size of it and shape , suggesting a single mass that part along a weak head , rather than two disjoined piece . The small part ( that is skinny to the pterosaur ’s pelvis ) is badly preserved and depict calcite crystals and is 11 millimeter long and 3 millimetre across . The second mass is 8 millimetre long and 4 mm across and consist of many tens of small and pallid comma - shaped or spike - like elements … These are typically around 0.2–0.3 mm in length , though larger ones are 0.45 mm . Some tiny ones are around 0.05 mm , and are more simple in configuration , but these may be partially concealed under other elements as they only appear in the keen density of these pieces .
Of not bad interest to the research worker are “ hooklets ” that are clearly visible upon unaired review of the coprolite :
These we primitively advise were hooklets from the arms or tentacle of a cephalopodan … but we now tentatively spurn this theory as the morphology of the cephalopodan come-on are a less proficient match than we had originally thought . A number of alternatives have also been assessed including the branchial apparatus of a humble fish , and possible invertebrate parentage such as spines from a small echinoderm or sponge spicules , but none are confident referrals .
If it is , in fact , fossilize bull , it will be the first register coprolite for any pterosaur ( which , think , are not dinosaurs ) , and could serve us well understand what these puppet ate and how they subsist .
For more detail , show the full report in the latest return of PeerJ.
[ PeerJviaSmithsonian ]
get in touch with the generator at[email protected ] . Top photo is of the full pterosaur specimen , weighing machine bar is 1 meter . Photo Credit : Hone et al . ,PeerJ| CC BY 4.0 .
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