Comments on: How Dinosaur Poop Got Its Name

By: Helen

Helen — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:43:53 +0000

Hey, my brother gave me a graphic novel about Cope and Marsh for Christmas. I should read it, huh. (It’s called Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards: A Tale of Edward Drinker Cope, Othniel Charles Marsh, and the Gilded Age of Paleontology – kind of the best title ever.)

By: Dinosaur Tracking

Dinosaur Tracking — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:30:11 +0000

[...] At the beginning of the 19th century, paleontology was a new branch of science. People had been picking up fossils and trying to determine their significance for as long as anyone could recall, but the study of organic petrifactions was something new. Shells and teeth laid down in ancient marine environments were common, but so were strange spiral-shaped bodies. They were often referred to as “fossil fir cones,” as they looked like the cones that fell from pine trees, but geologist William Buckland came to a different conclusion. The fossil “cones” were really petrified dung, which he called “coprolites.” [...]

By: Dinosaur Tracking

Dinosaur Tracking — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 22:18:00 +0000

[...] like a T. rex? Lumber around gulping party snacks like an Apatosaurus? Stain the carpet like a coprolite? This is the holiday for you, and we want to hear all about [...]

By: David Gan

David Gan — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 03:29:01 +0000

I was a volunteer with the California Academy of Sciences and about 8 years ago there was Jurrasic Park display and I showed some children som copralites and some of the smelled it and said it doesn’t stink at all.

By: An English Palaeontologist

An English Palaeontologist — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 22:05:02 +0000

The coprolites in the Buckland table are actually from marine reptiles called Ichthyosaurs, which are only very distintly related to dinosaurs. They are not dinosaurs themselves !