They Found A Fossilized Dinosaur That Might Still Have Poo In Its Butt

Ancient dinosaurs did not have the same kind of basic decencies that we humans do. They did not shit in toilets is what I’m saying. Gondwana, Laurasia, those super continents were just massive fields for dinosaurs to diarrhea in.

Those places must have been full of it. Pliosaur poops and Triceratops turds and Stegosaurus shits and Diplodocus dumps. Everywhere.

It isn’t often scientists find one. Poop doesn’t fossilize like bone. So it’s a big deal when it is discovered, especially if it’s still in a dinosaur’s butt.

Which is what just happened with a specimen of Pterosaur (which technically isn’t a dinosaur, but whatever) from the Late Jurassic period. Yes. Paleontologists think they found poo in it. From PeerJ:

Here we describe a new specimen of Rhamphorhynchus that was recently acquired by the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Alberta, Canada. This preserves extensive impressions of soft tissues, stomach contents of a vertebrate, and a putative coprolite.

Putative coprolite means possible fossilized shit. Wanna see it? Fuck yea you do.

Peerj

Look at that. Ain’t that some shit? Scientists are still speculating what it might be composed of. Definitely not Mexican or Thai. It still wouldn’t be in there if that was the case.

The part of the inferred coprolite closest to the pelvis of the animal is similarly indistinct and apparently consists of a calcite crystal mass again suggesting the presence of harder organic tissues as with the stomach contents. The second part is composed of tiny elements that are simple spikes and hook-like shapes. These we originally suggested were hooklets from the arms or tentacles of a cephalopod but we now tentatively reject this hypothesis as the morphology of the cephalopod hooks are a less good match than we had originally thought. A number of alternatives have also been assessed including the branchial apparatus of a small fish, and possible invertebrate origins such as spines from a small echinoderm or sponge spicules, but none are confident referrals.

So dinosaurs ate fish then needed to shit. They aren’t all that different from us after all.

[Via io9]