Fossilized poop offers clues into the rise of dinosaurs more than 200 million years ago
For tens of millions of years, dinosaurs dominated the planet – by not being finicky eaters.
A new study published Wednesday in the journal Nature sheds some new light on how that came to be, and the research behind it has a whole lot to do with one thing: fossilized dinosaur poop.
Paleontologists from the University of Uppsala in Sweden studied more than 500 remains of digestive material called bromalites – including fossilized droppings called coprolites and fossilized vomit called regurgitalites – from among the earliest known dinosaurs, analyzing how their comparatively flexible diet allowed them to flourish more than 200 million years ago.
Dinosaurs' varied diets helped them thrive
From roughly 230-200 million years ago, during the Late Triassic and into the early Jurassic periods, dinosaurs emerged from just one of many reptilian species to become the dominant species on Earth.
To gain insight into this little-understood but crucial period of dinosaur evolution, Martin Qvarnström and Grzegorz Niedźwiedzki, co-authors of the new study, turned to the bromalites.
They looked at more than 500 samples collected over 25 years from the Polish Basin, an area of southern Poland. Using methods including 3D imaging to observe the internal structure of the fossilized droppings, they were able to gain see what these early dinosaurs ate, and in turn, how they evolved.
“Our study shows that you can use pretty seemingly unremarkable fossils to get pretty remarkable results,” Qvarnström told Nature.com.
The coprolites contained bits of fish, insects, plants and other animals. Some contained well-preserved beetles and half-eaten fish, while others had bits of crushed bone.
All of that poop was extensively analyzed by researchers and used to build food webs showing what the emerging dinosaur species were eating and how their diet evolved. Comparing that with the existing fossil record and climate data showed that dinosaurs were not picky eaters compared to some other species they were sharing the planet with.
As Earth underwent tremendous changes in its climate during this same time period, the flexibility of those early dinosaur diets allowed them to rapidly adapt and thrive.
"By studying ecosystem responses of the past, we gain essential insights into how life adapts and thrives during shifting environmental conditions," Qvarnström said in a statement.
Max Hauptman is a Trending Reporter for Paste BN. He can be reached at MHauptman@gannett.com.