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Subscribe to RSSThe skull of a Tyrannosaurus rex may have brought in more money ... $215,000, to be precise. But the items that attracted the most attention today at I.M. Chait Gallery/Auctioneers' annual natural history auction in New York were of humbler origin: lumps of fossilized dinosaur poop, also known as coprolites, which sold for $1,200. Coprolites are nothing like your garden-variety droppings. Scientists find them interesting because their composition can hint at the diets of prehistoric creatures (including humans), while collectors find them interesting partly because of the "eww" factor. (Last year, a Swiss watchmaker unveiled a $11,290 timepiece made from coprolite.) Watch this video from msnbc.com's Todd Kenreck for more about coprolite commerce.
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Shouldn't that headline be: "Dinosaur dung makes a splat"?
Bravo!! .. what a gem!
It would be more of a "thunk," considering it is fossilized to stone.
looks like dino doo, smells like dino doo...how mucho american dollars??....as they crack down on dvd pirates, you just wait....someone is gonna see an opportunity to wax a museum.....still, the awe-thor coulda said a lot more about coprolite...in theory there ougta be a lot of it just lying around........how do they know what species plopped it where they found it?...is it slightly radioactive like dino fossils due to mineralization? now that the northern tundra is opening back up, any expeditions looking for this stuff in an effort to recover dna?...and lastly...anything like this found in antartica??