"Like New" Coprolite Fossils From East Central Utah

     You can't make this stuff up!

      I ordered several Jurassic age coprolite (fossilized dinosaur scat) from east central Utah from a rock shop. 

       The order form lists the condition of this "Christmas Poop -- Better than Coal" as "Like New." These are "Authentic Fossils" and they are "Like New."      

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      The Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry of east central Utah has produced some of the most well-preserved and complete sets of carnivore dinosaur skeletons (and dinosaur poop!) in the Jurassic formations of North America. 

     Over 15,000 dinosaur bones have been discovered so far from this quarry, a natural predator trap (similar to the La Brea Tar Pits). Many of the rearticulated dinosaur skeletons reside in over 65 museums worldwide. 

      The quarried mudstone is part of the distinctive red Morrison Formation (of Colorado's Red Rocks Amphitheater fame).

      Interstate-70 divides the area into the north and south halves of the San Rafael Swell, where the quarry is located. (I-70 starts/ends west of the quarry).

      The atypical predator/prey ratio (3:1) represented at the quarry may be explained by the pack hunting tendencies of the most prevalent skeletons, the Allosaurus.  

       The high percentage of smaller individual allosaurs suggests that younger dinosaurs worked together to capture and kill prey. The predators may have followed their prey into the mud and subsequently became mired in the predator trap themselves. (Insert "drain the swamp" joke here).

Look! Fossils "like new!"
Steph

Giant Sloth Coprolite From Nevada: This Poop is Fair to Midden

      An extinct giant sloth once used a spacious cave in Nevada not just as a shelter but also as a huge outhouse, leaving droppings on the cave floor whenever nature called. Now, scientists have analyzed the sloth's mummified dung (which is also known as a midden) and determined what plants the animal ate most frequently, according to new research.



      Chemical analyses of the fossilized poop, known as coprolites, revealed that the ancient sloths primarily ate an orange-flowered perennial shrub known as desert globemallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua),

 a shrub called Mormon tea (Ephedra) 

and a drought-tolerant plant known as saltbush (Atriplex), said Ryan Haupt, Department of Geology and Geophysics at the U. of Wyoming.

      Scientists have known about the coprolites in southern Nevada's Gypsum Cave since the 1930s. 



      The Shasta ground sloth,  Nothrotheriops shastensis, lived in the cave at different points, from about 36,000 to 11,000 years ago, Haupt said.



      "Radiocarbon dates from the coprolites correlate with periods where the climate was a bit cooler, and since we know that modern tree sloths don't thermoregulate very well, it's possible that these ground sloths were going into the cave to keep warm," Haupt said.


     To complete the analysis, Haupt needed only a few milligrams of each coprolite. After grinding the small samples with a mortar and pestle, he analyzed the specimens for different carbon and nitrogen isotopes.

      Plants that live in dry, hot or otherwise water-stressed environments have evolved strategies to prevent themselves from drying out, such as absorbing sunlight during the day but absorbing carbon dioxide only at night. These strategies also affect the chemical pathways used during photosynthesis, resulting in different ratios of heavy and light stable carbon isotopes in the plants. These ratios work their way up the food chain when animals eat these plants, so by measuring the ratios, Haupt was able to see what plants the sloths chose to eat.

     The analysis fits with the saying, "'You are what you eat,' but down to the atomic level," Haupt said.

      The new results correlate with previous findings that were reached using different methods. For instance, some scientists looked for identifiable plants within the mummified excrement, either under a microscope or based on the plants' DNA, he said. The plants identified in previous studies match the ones Haupt recognized in the isotope analysis.

     But not all species of extinct sloths left behind coprolites, which makes it difficult to compare the diet of the Shasta ground sloth with that of related sloths. Luckily, this molecular analysis, known as stable isotopic analysis, can also be applied to analyses of sloth bones and teeth, "which is pretty neat," Haupt said.

     For instance, the Shasta ground sloth was more of a mixed feeder than other ancient sloths were, including those in the Megatheriidae and Mylodontidae families, Haupt found when he compared the Shasta ground sloth results with already-published values from the bones and teeth of other sloths.

      Timothy Gaudin, a professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, who was not involved in the study, said the research is encouraging because it requires only a small piece of the coprolite for analysis.

      "In the past, there have been studies on these, but what they've had to do is literally take the coprolites apart, pull all of the little plant parts out and try to identify them one at a time," Gaudin said. "And then you end up with no specimen."

       And so, despite the fact that this happens:

       

       This also happens (My favorite sloth image from Costa Rica with Zoë).

ONWARD!
Steph

"Bombs" atop PVC pipe "missile silos" built by kindergartners on Friday. Sigh.

Coprolite Happened: Poo, Poop, Do, Dung, Scat; Do-Diddly-Be-Bop-Scat

        Coprolite happened! Not happens. Ah, but we quibble.

     Fossil excrement is a thing of the past. Coprolite, meaning dung stone, did indeed happen all over the world. And not just dinosaur scat although dinosaur poo gets the most notoriety.

        Most coprolites are primarily composed of calcium phosphate with minor quantities of organic matter. Dung beetles did enjoy their dinosaur dung. These trace fossils were a big hit with kindergartners at Dinosaur Ridge Tuesday. They uncovered an herbivore dinosaur skeleton, as well as the carnivore dinosaur tooth in her spine, her nest, and, of course, the coprolite.

        There are coprolite cabochons or cabs:

          And there's Cab Calloway, an early jazz scat singer:

           Jazz scat is a humorous, non-word way of singing, wonderfully sung by Cab, Ella Fitzgerald, and many others.

            Dinosaur scat is a humorous trace fossil. Right?

            Scat. Scat. Cab. Cab. A coincidence? I think not. . .What do you think?

          And, finally, a coprolite controversy: Is this a coprolite or Faux Poo?

                           The END.

Scat-o-logically,
Steph

P.S. I am bracing myself for Close Encounters of the Turd Kind and other poo puns. Pun on if you are feeling fair to midden. . .

                    The BEGINNING

     Zoe's Peace Corps Swearing-in Ceremony on Friday in Ethiopia:

"We use what we have, where we are, while we can."