Fossil excrement reveals successful dinosaur diet

Nov. 27 () –

An international study led by the Uppsala University has been able to identify remains of undigested food, plants and prey in the fossilized feces of dinosaurs.

These analyzes of hundreds of samples provide clues about the role dinosaurs played in the ecosystem about 200 million years ago. The findings have been published in Nature magazine.

“Collecting information about who ate who in the past is real detective work,” says Martin Qvarnström, researcher at the Department of Organismal Biology and lead author of the study. “Being able to examine what animals ate and how they interacted with their environment helps us understand what allowed dinosaurs to be so successful.”

Paleontologists at Uppsala University, in collaboration with researchers from Norway, Poland and Hungary, have examined hundreds of samples using advanced synchrotron imaging to visualize in detail the hidden internal parts of fossilized feces, known as coprolites.

By identifying remains of undigested food, plants and prey, have recreated the structure of ecosystems at the time when the dinosaurs began their successful story.

The study focused on a hitherto little-explored region in the northern parts of the then supercontinent Pangea. The researchers built a complete picture of Triassic and Jurassic ecosystems (about 230 to 200 million years ago) by combining information from coprolites with climate data and information from other fossils: plants, bite marks, vomit, footprints and bones.

“The research material was collected over a period of 25 years. It took us many years to put everything together into a coherent picture,” says Grzegorz Niedzwiedzki, researcher at the Department of Organismal Biology and lead author of the study.

“Our research is innovative because we have decided to understand the biology of the first dinosaurs based on their food preferences. There were many surprising discoveries along the way.”

The coprolites contained remains of fish, insects, larger animals and plants, some of which were unusually well preserved, including small beetles and semi-complete fish. Other coprolites contained bones chewed by predators that, like modern hyenas, They crushed the bones to obtain salts and marrow.

The content of the coprolites of the first large herbivorous dinosaurs, the long-necked sauropods, surprised researchers. These contained large quantities of tree ferns, but also other types of plants and charcoal. Paleontologists hypothesize that the charcoal was ingested to detoxify the contents of the stomachsince ferns can be toxic to herbivores.

The research addresses an important gap in current knowledge: the first 30 million years of dinosaur evolution during the Late Triassic period. Although much is known about their lives and their extinction, the ecological and evolutionary processes that led to their emergence are largely unexplored. The study results in a five-step model of dinosaur evolution that researchers believe can explain global patterns.

The team highlights that understanding how the first dinosaurs achieved their success can offer valuable information about prehistoric ecosystems and evolutionary processes in general. The results show that dietary diversity and adaptability were characteristic crucial for survival during the environmental changes of the Late Triassic.

“Unfortunately, climate change and mass extinctions are not just a thing of the past. By studying past ecosystems, we gain a better understanding of how life adapts and thrives under changing environmental conditions,” says Qvarnström.

“The way to avoid extinction is to eat lots of plants, which is exactly what the first herbivorous dinosaurs did. The reason for their evolutionary success It is a true love for the fresh green shoots of plants“concludes Niedzwiedzki.