Coprolites

Sometimes paleontologists get really lucky and find coprolites from the Pleistocene Era (about 1.8 million years to 10,000 years ago) which have not been fossilized, but instead have been dessicated (dried) while being protected in dry caves or in permafrost. Most coprolites become permineralized (in which bone, teeth or shells are replaced by minerals), limiting the analysis that can be done on them, but dessication allows biochemical analysis to be performed.

These dessicated coprolites can also be dated radiometrically with carbon-14. Using radiometric rather than relative dating can give a better estimate of when a species lived in an area and local extinction dates. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) can also be used in biochemical analysis.

Coprolites can also give us some unsuspected insight into past relationships between animals. Paleontologist Karen Chin, who specializes in coprolites, discovered tunnels in some dinosaur coprolites she was studying. She was able to determine that these tunnels were produced by dung beetles very similar to the modern dung beetles that can be found crawling about on the feces of our modern large herbivores. These tunnels allowed Dr. Chin to determine that dung beetles had a relationship with dinosaurs before mammals came to dominate the terrestrial ecosystems in the Tertiary Period (65 to 1.8 million years ago). It had long been believed that dung-eating beetles first appeared with the development of large, grassland, herbivorous mammals.

In my next article, I will be interviewing Dr. Chin, and we will learn more about her research on coprolites. Be sure to read my article "Dinosaur Tracking" for more information about ichnology and trace fossils.

For more information:

Karen Chin's chapter on coprolites in the Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs

More information about Dr. Chin and coprolites

Coprolite trivia: Did you know that a sauropod dinosaur produced over one ton of dung per day?!

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