NEW YORK — Scientists have used fossilized fecal and vomit samples taken from Poland to reconstruct how dinosaurs came to dominate the Earth millions of years ago. .
Researchers do not know whether the emergence of dinosaurs over 30 million years was due to luck, technology, climate, or some combination. But they knew this and left. “It didn't come out of the blue,” said study co-author Martin Kvarnström of Uppsala University.
new researchpublished in Nature on Wednesday analyzed hundreds of dinosaur poop to reconstruct who was eating who 200 million years ago.
Kvarnström said the first dinosaurs were go-getters, eating anything they could get their hands on, including insects, fish and plants.
When climatic conditions changed, they quickly adapted. For example, plant-eating dinosaurs ate a wider variety of vegetables than other vegetarians at the time, making it easier for them to expand their palates as new plant species arose in humid environments.
Because the study's findings were limited to fossils from Poland, Kvarnström said they wanted to see if their ideas were solid against the fossil record around the world.
Emma Dunn, a paleontologist at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, said it's not unusual for scientists to study ancient feces to understand past life.
But fossilized feces can resemble lumps or chunks of rock, and are not always found near the remains of the animals that made them, making it difficult for scientists to know where the feces came from. is difficult.
In the study, researchers found fish scales, insect fragments, and bone fragments mixed in the feces.
“They're really understated, a very low-key part of the background,” said Dunn, who was not involved in the new study. “But they contain so much subtlety and detail.”
