This week's Fossil Friday is about fossilised poo.. You're welcome!
As funny as it sounds, coprolites are actually some of the most useful fossils we can find, as they preserve evidence of what the animal was eating, giving us a direct look at ancient food chains.
A coprolite forms when droppings are buried quickly enough to avoid being washed away or broken down. Over millions of years, minerals replace the original material, turning it into stone.
By cutting coprolites open and studying them, scientists sometimes find fragments of bone, scales, shells, and even plant material trapped inside. It's a bit like reading a prehistoric lunch menu, or a dino's calorie tracker!
This is why coprolites are classed as trace fossils. Like footprints or burrows, they don't preserve the animal itself, but evidence of its behaviour, which is super important if we want to build a picture of how they lived, not just how they died.
The word coprolite comes from the Greek words kopros (dung) and lithos (stone), which literally translates to 'dung stone'. Sometimes science really does just call things exactly as they are!
Fun fact: Not every fossil poo is actually fossil poo. Some specimens commonly sold as coprolites are now thought to be siderite concretions instead. Imagine being the scientist tasked with deciding whether you've discovered a fascinating piece of prehistoric behaviour... or just a suspiciously poo-shaped rock.
And yes, people do collect them. Both natural, and polished, because yes, you can polish a tu...
