What the dinosaurs left behind - paleontologist Karen Chin examines fossil dinosaur feces to better understand ecology of their times - Brief Article

Science News, Sept 21, 1996

When most paleontologists visit the Two Medicine Formation in Montana, they keep their eyes open for the bones of herbivorous dinosaurs, which populated this region 75 million years ago. Karen Chin, however, has something less glamorous on her mind. The graduate student from the University of California, Santa Barbara seeks the fossils of the feces excreted by those plant-munching behemoths of the Cretaceous period. From her studies of the rock-solid scat, Chin has managed to paint a detailed picture of the ancient ecology that connected dinosaurs and insects in a tight food web. She and her colleague Bruce D. Gill of Agriculture Canada in Ottawa report on their work in the recently issued June Palaios.

Most studies of fossilized dinosaur feces, or coprolites, have focused on the easily recognizable, torpedo-shaped droppings from carnivorous and omnivorous species. In contrast, Chin and Gill reported the discovery of coprolites from herbivorous dinosaurs. Ranging in size from small cobblestones to basketballs, these blocks contain broken-up pieces of conifers. Tunnels running through the coprolites record the activity of beetles that scavenged the dinosaur dung, suggest the researchers. If their interpretation is correct, these burrows would represent the earliest known evidence of dung consumption by beetles. This discovery would overturn previous speculation that dung-eating beetles evolved alongside the large mammalian herbivores, long after the extinction of the dinosaurs, suggest Chin and Gill.