#fossilised faeces

[uk-fossils]

Ceratodus Fossil Coprolites – Upper Triassic – Aust Cliff, Westbury Formation, UK – Authentic Specimen

Ceratodus Coprolite Fossils in Matrix – Upper Triassic – Aust Cliff, Westbury Formation, Penarth Group, Bristol, UK

This listing features a genuine fossil coprolite specimen, attributed to the prehistoric lungfish Ceratodus, embedded in original matrix from the famous fish, reptile, and coprolite bed at Aust Cliff, near Bristol. This site is part of the Westbury Formation, a classic Upper Triassic locality in the UK known for its rich vertebrate fossil content.

Scientific & Geological Details:

Location: Aust Cliff, Bristol, England, UK

Formation: Westbury Formation

Group: Penarth Group

Age: Upper Triassic (~205–210 million years ago)

Depositional Environment: Lagoonal to marginal marine with periodic anoxic conditions—ideal for preservation of vertebrate remains and trace fossils

Fossil Zone: Part of the Rhaetian Stage, marking the transition to the Jurassic

Notable Species: Ceratodus was a genus of lungfish, a group that still survives today in limited forms. These fish were adapted to low-oxygen waters and left behind spiral or pellet-like faecal fossils.

Morphological Features of the Coprolite:

Typically cylindrical or spiral in form

Surface texture may show subtle spiral markings (if not abraded)

Matrix may contain associated microvertebrate remains including fish scales or bone fragments

Represents trace fossil evidence (not the animal itself but its biological activity)

Specimen Information:

Discovery Date: 07 April 2025

Collected By: UKGE team members Alister and Alison

Preparation: Expertly cleaned and stabilised by Alison

Scale Reference: Shown alongside a 1cm cube for exact sizing – see photographs for dimensions and angles

What You See Is What You Get: The photos show the exact item you will receive

Authenticity: Supplied with a Certificate of Authenticity. All our fossils are 100% genuine and responsibly sourced.

Educational and Collectible Value:

This coprolite offers a fascinating window into ancient biological processes and Triassic ecosystems. It's a perfect specimen for collectors, educators, students, and anyone interested in paleobiology or the evolution of vertebrate life. Trace fossils like this are invaluable for reconstructing diet and environmental conditions of ancient species.

[venicepearl]

Mary Anning (21 May 1799 – 9 March 1847) was an English fossil collector, dealer, and palaeontologist. She became known internationally for her discoveries in Jurassic marine fossil beds in the cliffs along the English Channel at Lyme Regis in the county of Dorset, Southwest England. Anning's findings contributed to changes in scientific thinking about prehistoric life and the history of the Earth.

Anning searched for fossils in the area's Blue Lias and Charmouth Mudstone cliffs, particularly during the winter months when landslides exposed new fossils that had to be collected quickly before they were lost to the sea. Her discoveries included the first correctly identified ichthyosaur skeleton when she was twelve years old; the first two nearly complete plesiosaur skeletons; the first pterosaur skeleton located outside Germany; and fish fossils. Her observations played a key role in the discovery that coprolites, known as bezoar stones at the time, were fossilised faeces, and she also discovered that belemnite fossils contained fossilised ink sacs like those of modern cephalopods.

Anning struggled financially for much of her life. As a woman, she was not eligible to join the Geological Society of London, and she did not always receive full credit for her scientific contributions. However, her friend, geologist Henry De la Beche, who painted Duria Antiquior, the first widely circulated pictorial representation of a scene from prehistoric life derived from fossil reconstructions, based it largely on fossils Anning had found and sold prints of it for her benefit.

Anning became well known in geological circles in Britain, Europe, and America, and was consulted on issues of anatomy as well as fossil collecting. The only scientific writing of hers published in her lifetime appeared in the Magazine of Natural History in 1839, an extract from a letter that Anning had written to the magazine's editor questioning one of its claims. After her death in 1847, Anning's unusual life story attracted increasing interest.

[earhartsease]

Coprolite Street in Ipswich

sadly it's not cobbled

update: well damn

It was named after the factory which processed coprolite, or fossilised faeces, near Ipswich Docks. This factory was established by Edward Packard on the site of a former mill in 1849.

turns out they were mined as a source of phosphate for fertiliser - old shit is good shit

[dancemachinetrait]

Little Windenburg, July 1907

James was showing no signs of developing into the hearty, football-playing lad Edwin had always hoped for. At the age of six he discovered the entry for ‘Ammonite’ in the first volume of Encyclopedia Brittanica, and developed an immediate, all-consuming interest in fossils, geology and, as Annie Mae put it despairingly, ‘anything he can dig up out of the ground.’ He developed a habit of following family members around the house, spouting information in a never-ending stream. 

‘Clem, do you know what a coprolite is? Actually it was a woman who helped find it out. She’s called Mary Anning. She found an ichthyosaur and two plesiosaurs. A plesiosaur is like a big lizard that can swim. Anyway a coprolite is fossilised faeces-’

‘James Caroll!’ Annie rebuked, passing by with a basket of laundry. ‘Don’t you use words like that in my house.’

‘Fossilised manure, I mean’, he said hurriedly, adding as soon as Annie was out of earshot, ‘Only faeces is the proper scientific term. Mary Anning was awfully clever. She didn’t ever get married. Shall you ever get married, Clem?’

Clem, taken aback, managed to say, ‘No, I don’t expect so.’

James nodded approvingly. ‘Good. Getting married seems like an awful waste of time. There are so many more int’resting things to do.’

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[hugtheteadrinkthekitten]

"Just shove a bezoar down their throats!"

Today I found out that bezoar stones are another name for coprolites, discovered in the early 19th century to be fossilised faeces.

[darwinsdoor]

This week, we are unlocking the past on one of the most useful and strangest fossils, copralites! Read about how fossilised faeces can be used to shed light on the lives of extinct animals!

[maryanningrocks]

Mary Anning: The Scientist

From a young age, Mary Anning showed great promise as a formidable scientist of her time. Though she lacked formal education and would not have been allowed to attend university as both a woman and a dissenter, she taught herself geology, anatomy and made discoveries that led to many of the world’s first palaeontologists seeking out her advice above others.

It was at the age of 12 that Mary (aided by her older brother Joseph) made her first major discovery in the form of the first largely complete ichthyosaur to be identified as such. Though her brother initially discovered the 1.2m long skull, it was Mary who excavated and prepared the rest of the skeleton a year later. The skull of the beast was sold to a collector for the sum of £23 (the equivalent of almost £2000 today) though it now resides in the collection at the Natural History Museum in London.

[Drawing of the Ichthyosaurus skull discovered by Joseph Anning, originally from Home 1814]

Mary also famously collected the first complete plesiosaur, the first pterosaur from outside of Germany and an important fossil chondrichthyan for describing the transition between sharks and rays. She would often write descriptions and create detailed drawings of her discoveries, not dissimilar to those seen in scientific papers, though her own work was never published by a journal. Not by Mary, at least.

But Mary was not just a collector but rather knew a great deal about what she was finding and was described by Lady Harriet Sivester in 1824 as, “understanding more of the science [of what would become palaeontology] than anyone else in this kingdom.” 

This becomes greatly apparent in the fact that scientists, still famed for the ideas they provided us with (without crediting the woman who helped them), turned to her for her expertise and knowledge. These men include Georges Cuvier, William Buckland, Charles Lyell, Henry de la Beche and Richard Owen who consulted her on topics from anatomy and identification to the effect of coastal erosion on the cliffs of the Jurassic Coast.

It was Buckland who took the credit for one of Anning’s most important contributions to palaeontology- the identification of coprolites. Then known as “bezors”, coprolites, as Anning correctly deduced, are the fossilised remains of faeces and are extremely useful today in determining food chains and diet, internal anatomy and even stomach acidity of extinct animals.

[Coprolite discovered at Lyme Regis. Image from bigfossil.com]

Due to her status as a working class woman, outside the church of England, Anning was not allowed to join the Geological Society of London, though its members would often use her work. Her friend Anna Plinney wrote on Anning: "She says the world has used her ill ... these men of learning have sucked her brains, and made a great deal of publishing works, of which she furnished the contents, while she derived none of the advantages.". Indeed, the only piece of Mary’s writing to be published in a scientific capacity was a letter to the Magazine of Natural History concerning the validity of Hybodus as a new genus of shark.

Although she was denied the prestige afforded to her male colleagues, Anning was given annuity in the final years of her life when she suffered from breast cancer from the British Association for the Advancement of Science and the Geological Society. She was also the first person to receive an honorary membership of the Dorset County Museum.

We may never know the extent to which Mary Anning influenced the budding science of palaeontology but it is clear from the fame and renown she gained during her lifetime- being known across the globe by kings and scientists alike- that she was a formidable force for science and deserves to be remembered among the great pioneers of palaeontology.

[dinosaursonthetwinplanet]

Fossilised dinosaur faeces

Coloured scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of a section through a coprolite (fossilised faeces) from a dinosaur, showing the internal structure. As with other fossils, coprolites have much of their original composition replaced by mineral deposits such as silicates and calcium carbonates. Magnification x16000,

[nellygwyn]

18th and early 19th century British paleontologists, geologists and naturalists are weirdos/awful people: A Study by Me

1. William Buckland (1784-1856)

• Oh god where do I begin?

• Liked to go fossil hunting in his academic Oxford robes, alongside William Conybeare.

• Would fill his pockets, his saddle bags, his everything with fossils and curiosities of the prehistoric world. A woman tried to rob him before realising his bag was full of trilobites.

• When he left Oxford briefly for a tour of the Continent, his fellow academics said 'Well, Buckland is gone! No more of that damn geology!' (Actually said this)

• Didn't actually call paleontology or geology by its proper name but rather, called it 'undergroundology.' Whatever, Buckland.

• Had literally a house full of exotic animals. Would sit down for a relaxing Saturday night and have his feet ripped up by jackals, for example.

• Weirdly wanted to eat every animal in the known world??? Including insects and parasites?? Gentlemen of this time actually did this for fun??? But Buckland took it one step further when one of his guests pointed out that the cabinet behind Buckland at dinner apparently held the heart of Louis XIV of France. Buckland said he had never eaten a king's heart before and proceeded to gobble the object up. Yeah.....so......you gonna have to shit that out so we can preserve it in a museum or what?

• Speaking of shit, he and Mary Anning worked out that what they kept finding inside the stomachs of fossilised creatures (such as Anning's ichthyosaur) was in fact, fossilised faeces that they named 'coprolite.' Mary Anning was fully contented to stop there on the subject of fossilised shit but Buckland had a table made out of it. I've seen it. Really is something.

• Buckland discovered the Red Lady of Paviland by abseiling down to a cave in the Gower Peninsula in South Wales. The Red Lady of Paviland is the oldest full skeleton of a human being found in Britain (and the oldest ceremonial burial found in Western Europe, at 33,000 years old). The bones also belong to a man, not a woman. But when Buckland found it, the bones were stained with red ochre dye and were adorned with jewellery made out of bone and shell. Buckland assumed that the only people who wear jewellery and the colour red are sex workers....and thus, the Red Lady of Paviland was a sex worker from Roman Britain! Sound reasoning, my man.

• Buckland was also a friend of the Prince Regent (later George IV) and this is the least surprising fact here.

2. Henry de la Beche (1796-1855)

• Nicknamed Sir Fopling Fossil on account of the fact he enjoyed looking for fossils in early 19th century dandy attire. Not sure how safe that was, considering the amount of times Black Ven cliffs in Lyme Regis were having landslides but hey, you do you.

• Could have married Mary 'Lightening Made Me Superhuman' Anning, but didn't. Gave her loads of money instead, though.

• His watercolours of the prehistoric world are super weird. One of them shows a plesiosaur taking a shit because of course it does.

• Normal person having a debate calls it 'a debate.' Henry de la Beche having a debate calls it 'The Great Devonian Controversy.'

• Once agreed to be 'test-vomiter' during a judgement of sewage flow in London.

• Actually most likely kind of a cunt, despite his dandy persona. He inherited/oversaw slave plantations in Jamaica.

3. Gideon Mantell (1790-1852)

• He gets a gazillion points from me for basically discovering Iguanodons (one of my Top 10 dinosaurs, up there with Ankylosaurus, Parasaurolophus and Triceratops and you can fight me if you disagree). But onto the bizarre....

• It was in fact, probably his wife who came across the famous iguanodon teeth, whilst Mantell was performing his tasks as an apothecary. This was very usual: Gideon would go to meet with his patients whilst Mary would wait outside and search the gravel for fossils and curiosities to show her husband. Still, she hardly appears in his rise to recognition.

• After deciding that the teeth he (or rather, SHE) had found kind of resembled those of a modern iguana but at a massive scale, Mantell wrote to Conybeare to say he was going to call this new creature...an iguana. Conybeare said that wouldn't do, iguanas already exist. What about Iguano-don?

• Actually, his entire story is kind of sad and I feel bad mocking him since the deal he got at the end of his life was a Big Sad, and I mean....he did discover 4 out of 5 genera of dinosaurs.

4. Richard Owen (1804-1892)

• Looks like a sweet old man in grainy photographs, but was actually considered to be a total dickwad??? A clever dickwad but a dickwad all the same. Loved to lie and perform general mischief. Trickster God masquerading as 19th century Paleontologist.

• He was Gideon Mantell's 'nemesis' (wow, do you have any other like, slogans from Hot Topic?) and boy, did he hate him.

• Tried to take all the credit for Mantell's iguanodon after Mantell's death and basically disregarded everything Mantell had written about the beast (which turned out to be absolutely spot on, by the way) and is the reason the dinosaur park in Crystal Palace is blessed with that model of a scaled ferret calling itself an Iguanodon.

• Not only did Owen take credit for Mantell's work, he also took Mantell's literal body parts. Mantell suffered from scoliosis after an accident and Owen requested that part of Mantell's spine be removed at the post-mortem so that Owen could pickle it and keep it forever. Except more recently, said pickled spine part got chucked in the bin because it was taking up too much space at the Royal College of Surgeons.

• Started out as Charles Darwin's pal, until Darwin became popular and published The Origin of the Species, after which Owen turned so green with jealousy that Darwin said this of his former friend: Spiteful, extremely malignant, clever; the Londoners say he is mad with envy because my book is so talked about...It is painful to be hated in the intense degree with which Owen hates me. #Dramasaurus

In conclusion: only female paleontologists and geologists of this time (see: Mary Anning*, Mary Mantell, the Philpott sisters, Lady Eliza Gordon-Cumming) seem to have been relatively normal, but were extraordinary by virtue of the fact they were women in science. Excluded from Royal Society anyway.

* Mary was struck my lightening as a baby and essentially came back from the dead following the strike. According to her parents, went from dull to genius after the incident. Still not as weird as Buckland.

[myfeeds]

Fossil discovery reveals complex ecosystems existed on Earth much earlier than previously thought

A fossilized ocean ecosystem Until now, scientists have long theorized that scorching hot ocean conditions resulting from catastrophic climate change prevented the development of complex life after the mass extinction. This idea is based on geochemical evidence of ocean conditions at the time. Now the discovery of fossils dating back 250.8 million years near the Guizhou region of China suggests that complex ecosystems were present on Earth just one million years after the Permian-Triassic mass extinction, which is much earlier than previously thought. “The fossils of the Guizhou region reveal an ocean ecosystem with diverse species making up a complex food chain that includes plant life, boney fish, ray-finned fish, crabs, lobsters, shrimp, and molluscs. In all, our team discovered 12 classes of organisms and even found fossilised faeces, revealing clues about the diets of these ancient animals,” says Morgann Perrot, a former postdoctoral researcher at McGill University, now at Université du Québec à Montréal. Challenging an age-old theory Previously, it was thought that complex ecosystem would need five to ten million years to evolve after an extinction. However, the researchers found that the specimens in the Guizhou region evolved much quicker than that by using radiometric dating to date the rocks where the fossils were discovered. “All of this has implications for our understanding of how quickly life can respond to extreme crises. It also necessitates a re-evaluation of early Triassic ocean conditions,” says Perrot, whose research focuses on earth sciences and geochronology.

[uk-fossils]

Fossil Shark Coprolite with Fish Scales & Bone London Clay Eocene Isle of Sheppey Kent UK Authentic Specimen

This listing features a fossilised shark coprolite (poo) containing preserved fish scales and bone fragments, collected from the world-renowned London Clay Formation on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, UK. This is a carefully selected and scientifically significant specimen from the Lower Eocene Epoch, and comes with a Certificate of Authenticity.

Coprolites are trace fossils representing the preserved faeces of ancient animals. In this case, the specimen is attributed to a predatory shark, as indicated by the inclusion of fish scale and bone material—evidence of diet and digestive processes in Eocene marine ecosystems.

The London Clay Formation is one of the most fossiliferous geological units in Europe, formed approximately 56 to 47.8 million years ago during the Ypresian Stage of the Eocene Period. The environment was a shallow, subtropical marine shelf rich in diverse marine fauna, including sharks, rays, bony fish, turtles, and crocodilians.

Morphology Features:

Irregular to spiral or elongate form typical of vertebrate coprolites

Mineralised matrix with embedded fish scale and bone inclusions

Brown-grey coloration due to clay mineral preservation

Often contains phosphatic components from digestive processes

These inclusions make this coprolite especially valuable as a direct window into predator-prey interactions and dietary evidence of ancient marine vertebrates.

The photograph shows the exact specimen you will receive. Scale rule squares/cube = 1cm. Please refer to the image for full size and detail.

Specimen Details:

Fossil Type: Shark Coprolite with Fish Scale & Bone Inclusions

Geological Unit: London Clay Formation

Geological Age: Early Eocene (Ypresian Stage)

Location: Isle of Sheppey, Kent, UK

Depositional Environment: Subtropical shallow marine shelf

Significance: Trace fossil showing ancient shark diet

This is an exceptional and rare example of a coprolite containing visible prey remains, ideal for fossil enthusiasts, educational collections, and anyone fascinated by the real-life ecology of prehistoric oceans.

All of our Fossils are 100% Genuine Specimens & come with a Certificate of Authenticity.

[tachtutor]

Scat scans: How lasers are teasing secrets from ancient poo

Scat scans: How lasers are teasing secrets from ancient poo

Coprolites, or fossilised faeces, have always been slippery customers. But now we can use X-rays to see inside them, they are yielding fresh insights into ancient ecosystems Life 16 December 2020 By Graham Lawton THE powerful X-rays at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France, have been used to look inside some highbrow stuff: papyri from ancient Egypt, Neolithic cave…

[koliasa]

Scat scans: How lasers are teasing secrets from ancient poo

https://tinyurl.com/ybju368b Scat scans: How lasers are teasing secrets from ancient poo - https://tinyurl.com/ybju368b Coprolites, or fossilised faeces, have always been slippery customers. But now we can use X-rays to ...

[mhsn033]

Lyme Regis fossil hunter Mary Anning’s ‘poo’ letter auctioned

Tell copyright Sotheby’s

Tell caption Mary Anning, who died in 1847, gained worldwide reputation of her many marine reptile fossil discoveries

A “uncommon” letter written by Jurassic Soar fossil hunter Mary Anning has equipped at auction for £100,000 – better than eight cases its reserve trace.

Broken-down 12 in 1811, Mary unearthed the skull of an ichthyosaur in Lyme Regis, Dorset, and soon gained worldwide reputation of reptile fossil discoveries.

Her letter from 1829 became to palaeontologist William Buckland a few field of coprolite – fossilised faeces.

A crowdfunding allure had been launched in a inform to elevate the letter to Lyme.

The Jurassic Soar Belief (JCT) and Lyme Regis Museum, which region up the allure that raised better than £40,000, described the letter as “a selected part of native heritage and palaeontological history”.

They’d hoped the letter, which became estimated to safe up to £12,000 at London’s Sotheby’s auction, might maybe maybe well maybe very successfully be displayed in the museum, which is built on the state the set up Mary became born in 1799.

Alternatively, it the truth is equipped for £100,800 to an anonymous non-public collector, an auction dwelling spokeswoman acknowledged.

Tell copyright Sotheby’s

Tell caption The letter written and signed by Mary Anning in 1829

Lucy Culkin, chief govt of the JCT, described the general public toughen as “extraordinary”.

“We’re pointless to claim upset that the letter might maybe maybe well maybe no longer be in Mary’s characteristic of foundation and that maybe this might maybe maybe well maybe no longer be as accessible to guests as we would appreciate loved, however hope the client might maybe maybe well maybe win in contact to talk to us about how lets work collectively for the profit of future aspiring geologists and paleontologists who visit the Jurassic Soar annually,” she acknowledged.

She acknowledged the belief and museum would provide refunds to of us who had contributed to the crowdfunding allure, however added any money left over “might maybe maybe well maybe scheme a indispensable and timely incompatibility” to forthcoming projects including the clutch of fossils from the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretascous eras.

‘Diminished her importance’

Sotheby’s acknowledged: “With its combination of acute commentary, deep records, loads of references to feminine friendship, and canny salesmanship, this letter offers notify to Mary Anning. It’s moreover an accurate rarity.

“Mary Anning became a working-class lady primarily primarily based fully in the provinces and not utilizing a attachment to any prestigious institution and who engaged with natural history on a commercial foundation: the scientific institution had abundant reasons to diminish her importance.

“It’s completely in most modern decades that her scientific characteristic has begun to be acknowledged.”

Who became Mary Anning?

Mary Anning became born in the seaside town of Lyme Regis in 1799

Despite the indisputable truth that her fogeys had 10 young of us, completely Mary and her brother Joseph, lived to maturity

When she became 15 months oldschool, Mary survived being struck by lightning

She moreover survived a landslide in 1833 that killed her canine Tray

Mary’s father became a cabinet maker and boosted his earnings by in search of fossils and promoting them to holidaymakers

After their father’s death in 1810, Mary and Joseph carried on fossil hunting to toughen the family

In 1811, when Mary became 12, they unearthed the skull of an ichthyosaur

Mary found the first full plesiosaur skeleton in 1823

She died in 1847 and even supposing she became renowned for her discoveries she became no longer taken critically as a scientist in her lifetime thanks to her gender and unfortunate background.

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[babbleuk]

Fossilised Vomit and Faeces Are Delighting Palaeontologists

Digging up the past can be a dirty business. from gizmodo http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2020/04/fossilised-vomit-and-faeces-are-delighting-palaeontologists/