NEW YORK (AP) — Using fossilized feces and vomit samples from Poland, scientists have pieced together how dinosaurs came to dominate…
NEW YORK (AP) — Use fossilized excrement and vomit samples from Poland, scientists pieced together the origin of dinosaurs dominate the Earth millions of years ago.
Researchers don’t know whether the rise of dinosaurs over 30 million years was due to luck, skill, climate, or some combination. But they came away knowing this: “It wasn’t a sudden thing,” said study co-author Martin Qvarnström of Uppsala University.
The new studypublished Wednesday in the journal Nature, analyzed hundreds of dinosaur droppings to reconstruct who ate who 200 million years ago.
The first dinosaurs were go-getters, Qvarnström said, eating whatever they could, including insects, fish and plants.
When climatic conditions changed, they quickly adapted. Herbivorous dinosaurs, for example, ate a wider variety of green vegetables than other vegetarians of the time. It was therefore easier to expand their palates when wetter conditions gave rise to new plant species.
Since the study results were limited to Polish fossils, Qvarnström said he would like to see if their ideas hold up against the fossil record around the world.
It’s not uncommon for scientists to study ancient feces to understand creatures of the past, said Emma Dunne, a paleobiologist at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. But fossilized droppings can look like blobs or chunks of rock, and they aren’t always found near the fossils of the animal that made them — making it difficult for scientists to know where they came from. .
In this study, researchers found fish scales, insect pieces, and bone shards nestled in the feces.
“They are a really modest, quite clear part of the background,” said Dunne, who was not involved in the new research. “But they hold so much delicate, fine-grained information.”
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