Scientists analysed hundreds of pieces of fossilised digestive material to reconstruct the diet of the dinosaurs. Their findings, based on research funded in part by the #NCN, were published by “Nature” on 27 November.
An international research team
Bromaliths of herbivorous dinosaurs (photo: Grzegorz Niedźwiedzki)
analysed hundreds of pieces of fossilised digestive material, called bromalites, to reconstruct what dinosaurs ate and how their diet changed. Using various research tools, they looked at nearly 500 fossilised pieces of poo and vomit, sampled from the southern edge of the Polish Basin, the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, and Silesia. On 27 November, their findings were published in “Nature”.
The fossils reveal that the rise of the dinosaurs, over millions of years in the Triassic period, was influenced by factors such as climate change and other species’ extinction.
Entitled Digestive contents and food webs record the advent of dinosaur supremacy, the article was authored by Martin Qvarnström (corresponding author), Joel Vikberg Wernström, Zuzanna Wawrzyniak, Maria Barbacka, Grzegorz Pacyna, Artur Górecki, Jadwiga Ziaja, Agata Jarzynka, Krzysztof Owocki, Tomasz Sulej, Leszek Marynowski, Grzegorz Pieńkowski, Per E. Ahlberg and Grzegorz Niedźwiedzki.
The research projects that led to the publication, headed by PIs Maria Barbacka. Grzegorz Pieńkowski, and Zuzanna Wawrzyniak, were funded partly by the NCN,
Abstract for the general public:
Fossilised poo and vomit show how dinosaurs rose to rule Earth