First of all, coprolites can tell us exactly what extinct animals were eating. Coprolites from herbivorous animals have yielded preserved stems, leaves, and seeds from extinct plants. When we combine this information with paleobotanical information, this tells us that the plants were edible and the geographic and geologic distribution of the plants and can help in relative dating of strata. Coprolites from carnivorous animals have contained fragments of teeth and bones. Although the type of prey animal can be difficult to identify from these fragments, when they can be identified this can also be used to determine what sort of animals lived at the same time and in the same region and the geologic and geographic distribution of animals and can help in relative dating.
There is a preservation bias to more carnivore coprolites: more of them are found than herbivore coprolites. Carnivore coprolites tend to contain a lot of calcium phosphate (derived from the hydroxyapatite that makes up bones), which may help to preserve the dung and aid in fossilization. Herbivore coprolites, on the other hand, usually contain a lot of undigested plant material (cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin--all forms of insoluble fiber that require long stays in the digestive tract and the presence of appropriate microorganisms to digest) which may make these coprolites more susceptible to physical breakdown.
When extant (still living) animals leave fecal material, the feces can be analyzed to identify parasites feeding on the animal and information about the animal's health, and biochemical and DNA analysis can help to identify the producer when it is unknown. Biologists can also look at the amount of fresh feces in an area and get an idea of how large a population of animals is. Fossilized feces presents more of a challenge when trying to identify the animal that produced it, simply because paleontologists are not able to perform these tests.
The oldest known coprolites are from the Silurian Period (435 to 395 million years ago). At this time, the development of vertebrate animals was in its early stages, and these coprolites could have only been produced by fish (vertebrates did not conquer land until the Carboniferous Period, 345 to 280 million years ago) or large invertebrate animals. Coprolites have been found at all time periods since then in marine, fresh water and terrestrial sediments.
Go To Page: 1 2
