Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 8
The Remains of the Day: Dinosaur Vomit, Stomach
Contents, Feces, and Other Gut Feelings
Dinosaur's Digest
Dinosaurs had to eat. What we would like to know, though, is just what dinosaurs
ate, how they digested this food, how often they ate, and how their eating patterns
affected everything else around them. These questions can be answered partly by
looking at dinosaur jaws, teeth, arms, legs, and rare soft parts. After all, a theropod
with a mouth full of sharp, pointed, and serrated teeth, set in jaws with attachment
sites for powerful muscles, accompanied by stout recurved claws on hands and feet,
wouldhavebecomeamitepeckishatavegetarianrestaurant.Yetthereisalsoapoint
where paleontologists admit a dinosaur's anatomy cannot tell us everything about
what went into or out of its body. For example, who would have known that Late
Cretaceous hadrosaurs crunched wood? That Early Cretaceous ankylosaurs swal-
lowed fruit? That Late Cretaceous sauropods grazed on grasses? That Early Creta-
ceous feathered dinosaurs gulped their avian cousins?
So dinosaur trace fossils come to our rescue again, enlightening us about what
passed into or exited the dark passages of dinosaur entrails. We already know how
toothmarks help with interpreting what some dinosaurs ate. Microwear on teeth in-
formsusaboutchewingandwhetherdinosaurswerelow-levelgrazersornot.Gastro-
liths tell us how these stony implements assisted dinosaur digestion. But those trace
fossils were just the appetizers for expanding our knowledge about dinosaur diets
and the ecological consequences of their feeding. More trace fossils—with exotic-
sounding names like enterolites, cololites, urolites, and coprolites—await our con-
sumption, absorption, and appreciation, explaining more deeply what dinosaurs ate
and how these traces affected other lives in dinosaur ecosystems.
