Re: [asa] Quick Q about coprolite densities

Joel:
> Another reason I was interested is because I had this idea that if
> dino-do-do could be found from prior to the origin of the
> angiosperms and then after it would be interesting to correlate
> that dino dung with the position of plant fossils in the geological
> column. I like to point out to my YEC friends that fossil record
> is more than just an interesting set of successive fossils but
> rather shows fascinating correlations that would not be predicted
> by any YEC flood geology model. Your responses and some comments I
> have read about the difficulty of assigning coprolites to specific
> dinos probably doesn't make the comparison possible. However,
> there is at least one example (don't have the ref handy at the
> moment) of dino gut content from the late Jurassic that consists of
> fern/lycopod/Gymnosperms only. As an aside, I've always found it
> amazing that those huge beasts could survive on those plants. I
> suppose there must have been some ferns and gymnos that were a bit
> more succulent than today. There aren't many animals today that are
> willing to chew any pteridophytes or gymnosperms unless they are
> starving to death. But, I suppose the reason they taste so awful
> is all that time they spent getting chomped in the past!
> Joel
I always emphasize to my students in my "Age of Dinosaurs" class how
fibrous and resinous the dominant plants of the early Mesozoic were.
It was difficult to be a herbivore. Most had very large guts for
extended fermentation and gastroliths to assist with pulverizing the
plant material. It also seems likely to me that such plants were
not as toxic to reptiles and dinos as they are to modern mammals. I
believe that Ginkos, for example, are toxic to mammals but not to
modern reptiles. Also, beetles were likely important agents for
pollinization for plants like cycads, taking the role of modern
social insects and birds.

Keith

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Received on Wed Jan 10 18:38:41 2007