Coprolites

Coprolites (from Gr. kopros, 'dung,' and lithos, 'a stone') are the fossilised excrements of animals found in Palæozoic, Mesozoic, and Tertiary strata. Their true nature was first inferred by Dean Buckland (1829), from their occurrence in the bodies of several species of Ichthyosaurus, in the region where was situated the intestinal tube. It has been since shown that they are the voidings chiefly of saurians and of sauroid fishes. They often contain portions of scales, bone, teeth, and shells, the indigestible parts of the food on which the animals lived. Occasionally, they may be found exhibiting the spiral twisting and other marks produced by the conformation of the intestinal tube, similar to what is noticed in the excrement of some living fishes. These peculiar markings obtained for them the name, when their true nature was unknown, of 'larch-cones' and 'bezoar-stones.' Coprolites are found to contain a large quantity of phosphate of lime; and as this forms a valuable manure, the deposits containing them have since 1846 been largely quarried by the manufacturers of artificial manures.