A report on Feces and Coprolite

Skatole is the principal compound responsible for the unpleasant smell of feces.

A large coprolite of a carnivorous dinosaur found in Harding County, South Dakota, USA. Photo courtesy of the Poozeum

The molecule hydrogen sulfide contributes to the smell of feces.

A large Miocene coprolite from South Carolina, USA.

A pet waste station in Tucker, Georgia

A large coprolite (fossilized feces) from South Carolina, USA.

Cyclosia papilionaris consuming bird droppings

Age: White River Oligocene; Location: Northwest Nebraska; Dimensions: Varies (25 mm X 20 mm); Weight: 8-10 g; Features: Many small inclusions and one has a complete toe bone from a small deer called a leptomeryx.

A Miocene pseudocoprolite from Washington state. Commonly mistaken for coprolites because of their appearance and shape; they are actually of inorganic origin. Scale in mm. See Spencer (1993).

Sign ordering owners to clean up after pets, Houston, Texas, 2011

Bear scat showing consumption of bin bags

The cassowary disperses plant seeds via its feces

Earthworm feces aids in provision of minerals and plant nutrients in an accessible form

Feces from different seabirds.

A coprolite (also known as a coprolith) is fossilized feces.

- Coprolite

A coprolite is fossilized feces and is classified as a trace fossil.

- Feces

Skatole is the principal compound responsible for the unpleasant smell of feces.

3 related topics with Alpha

Permineralized bryozoan from the Devonian of Wisconsin.

Fossil

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Any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age.

Any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age.

Permineralized bryozoan from the Devonian of Wisconsin.

External mold of a bivalve from the Logan Formation, Lower Carboniferous, Ohio

Silicified (replaced with silica) fossils from the Road Canyon Formation (Middle Permian of Texas)

Recrystallized scleractinian coral (aragonite to calcite) from the Jurassic of southern Israel

The star-shaped holes (Catellocaula vallata) in this Upper Ordovician bryozoan represent a soft-bodied organism preserved by bioimmuration in the bryozoan skeleton.

Examples of index fossils

Microfossils about 1 mm

The wasp Leptofoenus pittfieldae trapped in Dominican amber, from 20 to 16 million years ago. It is known only from this specimen.

Eroded Jurassic plesiosaur vertebral centrum found in the Lower Cretaceous Faringdon Sponge Gravels in Faringdon, England. An example of a remanié fossil.

A subfossil dodo skeleton

Lower Proterozoic stromatolites from Bolivia, South America

An example of a pseudofossil: Manganese dendrites on a limestone bedding plane from Solnhofen, Germany; scale in mm

Ceratopsian skulls are common in the Dzungarian Gate mountain pass in Asia, an area once famous for gold mines, as well as its endlessly cold winds. This has been attributed to legends of both gryphons and the land of Hyperborea

Fossil shells from the cretaceous era sea urchin, Micraster, were used in medieval times as both shepherd's crowns to protect houses, and as painted fairy loaves by bakers to bring luck to their bread-making.

Ichthyosaurus and Plesiosaurus from the 1834 Czech edition of Cuvier's Discours sur les revolutions de la surface du globe

Phacopid trilobite Eldredgeops rana crassituberculata. The genus is named after Niles Eldredge.

Crinoid columnals (Isocrinus nicoleti) from the Middle Jurassic Carmel Formation at Mount Carmel Junction, Utah

Carbonized fossil of a possible leech from the Silurian Waukesha Biota of Wisconsin.

Partially coalified axis (branch) of a lycopod from the Devonian of Wisconsin.

Cambrian trace fossils including Rusophycus, made by a trilobite

A coprolite of a carnivorous dinosaur found in southwestern Saskatchewan

Densely packed, subaerial or nearshore trackways (Climactichnites wilsoni) made by a putative, slug-like mollusk on a Cambrian tidal flat

thumb|Marine fossils found high in the Himalayas. Collection of the Abbot of Dhankar Gompa, HP, India

Three small ammonite fossils, each approximately 1.5 cm across

Eocene fossil fish Priscacara liops from the Green River Formation of Wyoming

A permineralized trilobite, Asaphus kowalewskii

Megalodon and Carcharodontosaurus teeth. The latter was found in the Sahara Desert.

Fossil shrimp (Cretaceous)

Petrified wood in Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona

Petrified cone of Araucaria mirabilis from Patagonia, Argentina dating from the Jurassic Period (approx. 210 Ma)

A fossil gastropod from the Pliocene of Cyprus. A serpulid worm is attached.

Silurian Orthoceras fossil

Eocene fossil flower from Florissant, Colorado

Micraster echinoid fossil from Englandf

Productid brachiopod ventral valve; Roadian, Guadalupian (Middle Permian); Glass Mountains, Texas.

Agatized coral from the Hawthorn Group (Oligocene–Miocene), Florida. An example of preservation by replacement.

Fossils from beaches of the Baltic Sea island of Gotland, placed on paper with 7 mm (0.28 inch) squares

Dinosaur footprints from Torotoro National Park in Bolivia.

Fossils may also consist of the marks left behind by the organism while it was alive, such as animal tracks or feces (coprolites).

Buckland in 1833

William Buckland

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English theologian who became Dean of Westminster.

English theologian who became Dean of Westminster.

Buckland in 1833

Bust of Buckland in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History

William Conybeare drew this cartoon of Buckland poking his head into a prehistoric hyaena den in 1822 to celebrate Buckland's ground breaking analysis of the fossils found in Kirkdale Cave.

Buckland family silhouette

Duria Antiquior – A more Ancient Dorset, 1830 watercolour by Henry De la Beche, based on Buckland's account of Mary Anning's discoveries

Painting by Richard Ansdell

He pioneered the use of fossilised faeces in reconstructing ecosystems, coining the term coprolites.

A paleontologist at work at John Day Fossil Beds National Monument

Paleontology

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Scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch .

Scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch .

A paleontologist at work at John Day Fossil Beds National Monument

The preparation of the fossilised bones of Europasaurus holgeri

Analyses using engineering techniques show that Tyrannosaurus had a devastating bite, but raise doubts about its running ability.

This Marrella specimen illustrates how clear and detailed the fossils from the Burgess Shale lagerstätte are

Cambrian trace fossils including Rusophycus, made by a trilobite

Climactichnites---Cambrian trackways (10–12 cm wide) from large, slug-like animals on a Cambrian tidal flat in what is now Wisconsin.

Levels in the Linnaean taxonomy

This wrinkled "elephant skin" texture is a trace fossil of a non-stromatolite microbial mat. The image shows the location, in the Burgsvik beds of Sweden, where the texture was first identified as evidence of a microbial mat.

Opabinia sparked modern interest in the Cambrian explosion

At about 13 cm the Early Cretaceous Yanoconodon was longer than the average mammal of the time

Birds are the only surviving dinosaurs

This illustration of an Indian elephant jaw and a mammoth jaw (top) is from Cuvier's 1796 paper on living and fossil elephants.

First mention of the word palæontologie, as coined in January 1822 by Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville in his Journal de physique.

Haikouichthys, from about in China, may be the earliest known fish

Trace fossils consist mainly of tracks and burrows, but also include coprolites (fossil feces) and marks left by feeding.