#fossilized poop

[stopdoopyphotos]

coprolite- fossilized poop

[uk-fossils]

Turtle Coprolite Fossil - Eocene - Madagascar - Genuine Prehistoric Specimen + COA

For sale is an authentic Turtle Coprolite fossil from the Eocene Epoch, discovered in Madagascar. This well-preserved specimen represents the fossilized excrement of an ancient turtle, offering a fascinating glimpse into the diet and ecosystem of prehistoric reptiles that lived approximately 56 to 33.9 million years ago.

Geology & Fossil Type:

Coprolites are trace fossils, meaning they preserve evidence of ancient life rather than the organism itself. This Turtle Coprolite was formed when prehistoric turtles excreted waste that became mineralized over millions of years, preserving its shape and internal composition. These fossils are scientifically significant as they provide insights into the feeding habits and digestive systems of ancient reptiles.

The Eocene Epoch was a time of significant evolution for many reptilian species, and Madagascar was home to a diverse array of wildlife, including ancient turtles. This fossil provides a direct connection to these prehistoric ecosystems, making it a valuable and rare paleontological specimen.

Fossil Details:

100% Genuine Fossil – No Replicas or Synthetics

Comes with a Certificate of Authenticity

From the Alice Purnell Collection, a highly regarded fossil collection

Scale cube = 1cm for size reference (please see photos for full dimensions)

You will receive the exact specimen shown in the listing

This rare Turtle Coprolite fossil is an exceptional addition to any fossil collection, educational display, or natural history collection. It is a unique and conversation-worthy specimen, perfect for collectors, educators, and paleontology enthusiasts alike.

Shop with confidence! We specialize in authentic fossils and minerals, ensuring each piece is carefully selected and properly identified. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out!

Fast & Secure Shipping Available Worldwide.

[amnhnyc]

On National Poop Day, we share ancient poop! Can you guess which animal made this well-preserved mess? A giant ground sloth! This specimen was found in Mylodon Cave in Chile. Bones of giant ground sloths have been found near those of early humans, hinting that ground sloths and early humans used the same caves, though not necessarily at the same time.

[transparentfossil]

many bug feces Burmite Myanmar Burmese Amber fossil

[pterribledinosaurdrawings]

[psittacined]

Ways I’ve sterilized branches for pet birds along w the vinegar/oven/sun method bc ovens are only so big:

Steam cleaner (KILLS ALL GERMS AND ORGANISMS!! also makes cleaning cages SO EASY. con: u gotta put ur bird in another room/ travel carrier for cage cleaning bc u don’t want any accidents)

Hot car all day (only works in summer)

[commanderalanfrog]

Fly, be free, like poop from a butt. Be yourself and be true, just like a wet poo

Taylor Swif, 2025

[atalante241]

Just made a tmnt 03 zombie AU that hinges on whether or not poop can fossilize

[13thpythagoras]

sex or rape?...

I mean why else do you think human fossils are found in the Americas over 120,000 years ago, in Australia 65,000 years ago, but in Europe, only 20-40k years ago? Europe was literally just Northern Africa during the interglacial warm periods.

[Victorian accent] "Certainly humans didn't try to wander north into Europe first, before Australia or the Americas, and basically get eaten and raped out of existence by Neanderthals, who are technically hypercarnivores, heavens me that couldn't be! Only love and peace are possible in the past! Certainly hypercarnivores would respect our laws against murder and rape! Certainly!"

this is a common blind spot we whiteys have- Neanderthals ate human men and raped human women for over 100,00 years, it's why there are no human fossils in Europe over 50k years old but you do find human fossils in Australia and the Americas over 60k years old. Yet we think of the Neanderthal as a "noble savage," shoved off this earth by humans; and that's literally appropriating the history of Native Americans and Australians and using it to subtly excuse white supremacist violence. We whiteys are extra aggressive because of our hypercarnivore Neanderthal DNA, yet we think that DNA instead makes us these peaceful noble savages, unaware of how that's a subtle yet illegitimate license to commit white supremacist violence.

The thing is that the portrayal of Neanderthals as having been inherently grotesque and alien to H. sapiens is something we will never have proof of. But we do have proof that, in different locations and in different populations across time, we all found eachother desirable. We saw eachother and wanted to touch. And the offspring were held by their mothers and raised and had their own offspring in turn.

When you look for the first proof that H. sapiens found Neanderthals repulsive, you have to wait until the Victorian era, when the white masters of empires were busy portraying Neanderthals as stupid, brutish, and (of course) dark-skinned.

In more modern times, we’ve had people arguing that instead of seeing Neanderthals as Benighted Savages, they should instead be seen as Noble Savages, (allegedly) cruelly destroyed and driven from their lands by H. sapiens. Which one of their two you believe says more about your modern political views than it does about ancient H. sapiens.

And, whether we construct Neanderthals as Savage or Noble Savage, the fundamental assumption we project into the unfathomably distant past is still that H. sapiens saw Neanderthals as an Other, with the language we use being almost explicitly that of modern racial dynamics.

But we have no proof of any of that. We have no proof of hostilities. We know we co-existed and we had sex. That’s it.

Humans obviously have sex with some humans and kill others. We also know that, when small groups of humans occupy vast spaces with infrequent contact with others, unique cultures will always form, some more hospitable, some more neophobic/xenophobic. But many cultures of small settlements placed among huge unpeopled landscapes place supreme emphasis on hospitality to strangers. Plus, we fucking love other social animals, as evidenced by how we befriended wolves.

I’m a humourless weirdo and a wet blanket about popular constructions of Neanderthals as “monstrous”, and I freely admit it. But that’s because it’s tied up in legacies of imperialism. Not only that, but it also privileges one culture (yours, mine, modernity’s) as being most human by implicitly assuming we can project it onto people in the past. Since you don’t pretend that all global cultures share exact same values as you do, it doesn’t take more than a few moments’ reflection to realise you can’t do that to the past.

[xtruss]

236-Million-Year-Old Poop Fossil Reveals A Hidden Treasure — Oldest Evidence of Butterflies

Tiny Wing Scales Trapped in Fossilized Dung Suggest Butterflies Evolved Long Before Flowers Appeared.

— By Jenny Lehmann | June 5, 2025

Image Credit: Olga Bogatyrenko/Shutterstock

Interesting things can hide in preserved dung. Besides offering clues about long-gone vegetation, almost anything that gets trapped in ancient feces and stands the test of time can give us a glimpse into prehistoric life. The latest example? A tiny treasure buried in 236-million-year-old poop.

It might not be as glamorous as a bug in amber, but this dung fossil, likely left behind by a hippo-sized herbivore in what is now Argentina, contains the oldest physical evidence of butterflies or moths ever discovered. According to researchers from Argentina’s Regional Center for Scientific Research and Technology Transfer of La Rioja (CRILAR), this find, published with the Journal of South American Earth Sciences, could confirm that butterflies emerged much earlier than previously thought, right after the biggest extinction event in Earth’s history.

Butterfly Fossil Gap

Roughly 250 million years ago, life on Earth came dangerously close to ending. The end-Permian mass extinction wiped out around 90 percent of all species and triggered a slow and chaotic recovery. As ecosystems rebuilt themselves in the Early Triassic, new groups of insects began to evolve, likely in response to changes in the plant world.

While genetic data had hinted that butterflies (more broadly, lepidopterans) might have emerged around 241 million years ago, the oldest physical fossils we had only dated back 201 million years, to the early Jurassic. There was a 40-million-year gap in the fossil record — until now.

Inspecting Dung Fossils

The key to solving this evolutionary mystery came from an unlikely place: a fossilized poop deposit in Talampaya National Park, Argentina. Excavated by CRILAR paleontologists starting in 2011, the site was identified as a prehistoric communal latrine, an area where plant-eating animals would repeatedly return to do their business. Such behavior is still observed in some herbivores today and may have served both social and defensive purposes.

When scientists began inspecting the dung fossils (formally known as coprolites) under the microscope, they found something surprising: tiny, ornate scales less than 200 microns long (or about the width of two human hairs), the kind typically found on the wings of butterflies and moths. These hollow, patterned scales are a defining feature of lepidopterans. The structures were unique enough to prompt researchers to name a new species: Ampatiri eloisae.

This discovery places lepidopterans squarely in the Triassic Period, about 30 to 40 million years earlier than previously proven.

Butterflies Before Flowers

The implications go beyond just pushing back the timeline. The researchers believe Ampatiri eloisae may have belonged to a subgroup of lepidopterans called Glossata, characterized by a proboscis, the long, tube-like tongue used by modern butterflies and moths to suck up nectar, typically from flowers.

In the Triassic, however, forests only consisted of conifers and cycads; flowers didn’t even exist yet. These nonflowering plants secreted sugary droplets for pollination — tiny treats that would’ve been a perfect food source for early proboscis-bearing insects. That means the butterfly’s signature feeding structure likely evolved not for flowers, but for these ancient nectar substitutes.

Based on this, the researchers estimate that the proboscis may have first evolved between 260 and 244 million years ago, right after the mass extinction. That adaptation may have helped early butterflies and moths survive the harsh new world, allowing them to feed off pollination drops and setting the stage for a future partnership with blooming flowers, which wouldn’t appear until nearly 100 million years later.

While a full-body fossil would offer even clearer insight, these minuscule scales give us a remarkable piece of the evolutionary puzzle. Not only do they suggest that butterflies are much older than we thought, they also show how life bounced back after Earth’s worst-ever extinction, slowly reshaping into the vibrant ecosystems we see today.

[uk-fossils]

Fossil Reptile Coprolite - Gault Clay, Cretaceous - Folkestone, Kent, UK - Genuine Specimen + COA

This listing is for a 100% Genuine Fossil Reptile Coprolite from the Gault Clay Formation, dating back to the Cretaceous Period (~100 million years old). It was discovered in Folkestone, Kent, UK, a renowned site for beautifully preserved fossils.

Coprolites are fossilized droppings, providing a fascinating insight into the diet and digestive processes of prehistoric reptiles. This particular specimen has been carefully chosen for its excellent preservation and unique characteristics, making it a superb addition to any fossil collection, educational display, or gift for a paleontology enthusiast.

Formation: Gault Clay

Age: Cretaceous (~100 million years old)

Location: Folkestone, Kent, UK

Authenticity: 100% genuine fossil specimen

Certificate of Authenticity Included

📏 Sizing: Scale cube in the image is 1cm – please refer to the photos for full sizing details.

🔍 You will receive the exact specimen shown in the photos – carefully photographed to showcase its natural features.

🔖 Ideal for: Collectors, teachers, fossil enthusiasts, or as a unique gift!

💎 Shop with Confidence! All our fossils are carefully sourced, and each one is guaranteed authentic, coming with a Certificate of Authenticity for complete peace of mind.

📦 Fast & Secure Shipping – Your fossil will be well-packed to ensure it arrives safely.

Add this fascinating piece of natural history to your collection today!

[reddpenn]

I'm back from the rock show! Here are the Cool Rocks I got!

Let's start with the fossils this time.

This year I finally tracked down a Tully Monster, which is my state fossil! He's not a complete fossil, but you can see his eyestalk and the bottom of his proboscis very clearly.

A big chunk of dinosaur bone from Utah! Dino bone is easy to ID due to its distinct pattern, where agate and jasper have filled in the porous structure of the bone.

This is a coprolite, a piece of fossilized dinosaur poop! This one is from Madagascar.

This one is a stromatolite, a rock formation created by a colony of bacteria! Stromatolites are some of the oldest fossils on Earth. In fact, the microbes that make them were likely the very first lifeforms on the planet. And they're still around today, mostly unchanged from their ancient ancestors, and still making rock formations! This little stromatolite came from Madagascar.

A giant chunk of Turritella agate, which I won at the silent auction! Turritella agate is made of a bunch of fossilized snail shells all packed together and filled in with agate. (Despite the name, they're not actually Turritella snails, but rather Elimia tenera.) When cut and polished, it reveals beautiful organic patterns. This stuff comes from Wyoming.

That's all the fossils I brought home! Now on to the minerals!

I was very responsible and didn't come home with a million agates this year, but I couldn't resist this gorgeous rain flower agate! Hailing from Nanijing, China, these agates are naturally polished by the Yangtze River and have a unique, frosted finish.

Another cabochon for my cab collection! This is afghanite, a blue mineral that isn't related to the sodalite family, but likes to grow alongside it.

It fluoresces!

Vesuvianite, a mineral that gets its name because it was first discovered on the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius! The dark crystals growing on its surface are garnets. This piece is showing off a great example of vesuvianite's crystal habit and terminations.

A huge zircon crystal! Zircon is the oldest mineral on planet Earth. There's a deposit in Australia which has been radiometric dated to be about 4.4 billion years old! Not this guy, though. This one is from Pakistan.

It fluoresces!

An AMAZING specimen of anatase! It's extremely rare for anatase crystals to grow this large. In fact, the only other anatase crystals I've seen in person had to be viewed under a microscope!

Here's the most expensive piece I came home with - a South African diamond! Can you believe I didn't have a diamond in my collection yet? That problem has been remedied.

It fluoresces!

And finally, my friends and I broke open a few geodes at the geode-cracking booth. I picked out some Trancas geodes from Mexico.

This locale produces weird, wavy, wormy crystals! These formations occur when quartz (in the form of chalcedony or hyalite) grows atop hair-thin, curly crystals of anhydrite.

They fluoresce!

And that was my haul from the rock show!

[seat-safety-switch]

When I do my community service, teaching children about how to use tools, they invariably ask me: why so many kinds of screwdriver? Then I have to tell them about why there are so many different kinds of screwdriver. Perhaps you also don't know, because we are adrift in a post-doing-shit era, where we can't find anyone to fix our toilets. I've been pooping at the gas station for weeks.

Nobody really knows when the first screwdriver was invented, but we know the first fossils of early screws date back to the Mesozoic era. Back then, we only had flathead screws, because those were the easiest to turn with whatever was lying around. Coins, dinosaurs, early stratigraphic formations of the Earth itself. These screws were massive, because they hadn't invented the concept of "small" yet.

Hundreds of thousands of years later, the so-called Antipope John XXII invented the Phillips screw. You might wonder why he would name the screws not after himself, but pay attention to all those Xs in the name. Benedict Phillips just came by later and stole the idea, and covered his tracks very poorly. He was later killed by Alessia Torx (no relation) in a duel over the invention of slam poetry. Phillips had a lot going on, let's just leave it at that.

During the French Revolution is when things really started to get spicy for screws. Talented machinists were suddenly cast adrift in a world where they no longer had to take orders from any royalty, and the concept of "authority" now rested inside the beating heart of the noble worker. So they went fuckin' nuts, making whatever fasteners they could think of. Elias Triple-Square, of Vendée, made some particularly poor choices, and then published his findings in a German journal, where Holt Volkswagen made even worse decisions.

All this is to say, all the different screws are because every engineer thinks they're smarter than all the other ones. Even today, as we speak, some asshole is probably inventing a new kind of fastener that will obsolete your so-called "universal" screwdriver set. Maybe one day, you too can be one of those assholes, and leave your mark upon history forevermore.

[achromatophoric]

Were-Raven Wednesday bringing all her friends shiny rocks as gifts… except she doesn’t ever tell them that she gifted them, instead just left them on their pillows, windowsills, one even in Divina’s duffel bag where she keeps her swimming gear.

The others believe it’s a threat of some sort, that perhaps someone’s found out about the Nightshade Society and start becoming suspicious.

In the Nightshade Society’s hidden library, three members go over a new discovery.

Bianca: *frowning* That’s a goddamn blue sapphire. Where did you find it?

Divina: *worriedly* It was in my swim bag.

Yoko: *studies the sapphire* It matches your eyes, babe.

Bianca: Just like the rest. Shit. That’s almost all of us, then. This can’t be a coincidence.

Bianca: Aquamarine in my fencing duffel, turquoise in Kent’s Switch case, smoky quartz in Ajax’s bong…

Bianca: That’s all the Nightshades except for—

Divina: *worriedly* Except for Yoko.

Yoko: *looks up*

Bianca: So, Yoko, have you found any gems in your stuff? Something that matches your eyes, like a ruby?

Divina: Or a garnet? Maybe a carnelian?

Yoko: *hesitantly* Not exactly.

Bianca: *eyes narrow in suspicion* Is that so?

Yoko: Bitch, don’t look at me like that! I haven’t gotten anything that matches my eyes, but—

Yoko: *rummages through her pockets* —I did find this stupid pebble… hah! Here!

With her exclamation, Yoko presents a small, oddly-shaped brown pebble. The two sirens crowd in for a closer look.

Divina: That doesn’t look like a gem. Heck, it looks more like dried mud.

Bianca: Huh. Where’d you find it?

Yoko: This fucking thing was in my favorite boots! I was walking on it all day. Stupid piece of shit hurt like a bitch!

Bianca: *glares at the rock* This doesn’t make any sense. It breaks the pattern. It doesn’t match your eyes and it’s not a precious stone.

Voice: That depends on your definition of precious.

The three girls jump in shock at the unexpected voice. Yoko’s pebble goes flying through the air, only to be caught by—

Wednesday: *studies the pebble* Hmn. This may not be a gemstone, per se, but it is by no means mundane.

Bianca: *hisses* Addams, you have got to stop doing that!

Wednesday: *ignores Bianca as she holds the stone out to Yoko*

Yoko: *takes it back* So do you know what it is?

Wednesday: That is a coprolite, also known as a coprolith.

Bianca: What the shit is coprolite?

Wednesday: *seems somehow amused* What indeed.

Divina: Wait, I think I remember something from that museum trip last month. It’s like a fossil, isn’t it?

Wednesday: How astute of you, Divina. You are correct.

Yoko: Okay, so it’s a fossil, but of what?

The seer appears to the ignore the question as she tucks away whatever book she came for. She begins to leave, only to pause at the bottom of the stairs up.

Wednesday: I’ll allow a single CAW CA—

Bianca/Yoko/Divina: 🤨😟🫢

Wednesday: *coughs and clears her throat* CLUE. I’ll allow a single clue, which is…

Wednesday: Tanaka is often full of it.

Bianca/Yoko/Divina: 😑🤨😦

Wednesday: Beyond that, you have your phones. Make use of them.

Bianca: *glares after Wednesday as she ascends the steps* Bitch.

Yoko: *already on her phone* Copralite. Copra—wait, no. Co-pro-lite! Got it!

Divina: What is it, babe?

Yoko: 😐

Yoko: 🤨

Yoko: 😠

Yoko: It’s shit.

Bianca: What?

Divina: *snags Yoko’s phone and reads*

Divina: She’s not kidding. It’s like fossilized dinosaur poop.

Yoko: *scowling* Are you fucking kidding me? You guys all get pretty gems and all I get is fucking Cretaceous crap?!

Yoko: *cries out* FUCK!

Divina: *tries to comfort Yoko* It’s okay, babe. Maybe it’s from something cool, like a T-Rex.

Yoko: *shouts at pebble* You better be a tyrannoturd or else I’m gonna—

Bianca ignores the tirade as she stares thoughtfully at where Wednesday stood only moments ago.

Bianca: *mutters to herself* Was ca-ca another clue? Or did she go caw caw, like a…?

[alphynix]

Tachypleus syriacus was a horseshoe crab from the late Cretaceous (~100-95 million years ago) of what is now Lebanon.

Closely related to modern tri-spine horseshoe crabs, it displayed a similar level of sexual dimorphism. Females grew to at least 25cm long (~10"), with rounded front edges to their carapaces and shorter rear spines, while males were around 30% smaller with a scalloped shape to the front of their carapaces.

One recently described female specimen also preserves distinctive nodules around the rim of its carapace, which may represent some sort of sensory structure.

This particular specimen is also unique for preserving a coprolite in the process of being expelled from the horseshoe crab's body – that's right, it died while pooping.

———

NixIllustration.com | Tumblr | Patreon

References:

Bicknell, Russell DC, et al. "A unique example of the Late Cretaceous horseshoe crab Tachypleus syriacus preserves transitional bromalites." Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology (2024): 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1080/03115518.2024.2348748

Bicknell, Russell DC, et al. "On the appendicular anatomy of the xiphosurid Tachypleus syriacus and the evolution of fossil horseshoe crab appendages." The Science of Nature 106.7 (2019): 38. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-019-1629-6

Lamsdell, James C., and Scott C. McKenzie. "Tachypleus syriacus (Woodward)—a sexually dimorphic Cretaceous crown limulid reveals underestimated horseshoe crab divergence times." Organisms Diversity & Evolution 15 (2015): 681-693. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13127-015-0229-3