Talk:Coprolite

Monkey wrench
How can a fossil be examined for trace minerals when by definition all of the original material of a fossilized object has been replaced by completely different minerals? That throws kind of a monkey wrench in radiometric dating too, come to think of it.


 * That's correct. This page, in fact, incorrectly conflates "coprolite" with "paleofaeces"; the latter should not redirect to the former — or at least not without explaining the distinction between the two. Accordingly, I'll add a "paleofaeces" section. rowley (talk) 19:03, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Robert Peal's Meet the Georgians: Epic Tales from Britain’s Wildest Century (2021) isn't a serious historical study (nor would it claim to be) but Peal has Mary Anning and Professor Buckland boiling up coprolites in Anning's kitchen to soften them to see what's inside, thereby releasing a "foul stench that had been locked up for millions of years". This is presumably the author's embellishment to Anning and Buckland investigating coprolites by breaking them open (as in the WP article), or were these discoveries of Anning in fact Paleofeces?


 * --217.155.32.221 (talk) 13:55, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Name origin
I can't believe that this page makes no mention of the fact that Othniel Charles Marsh named coprolite after Edward Drinker Cope, his rival in the Bone Wars. I read that in a book on the Bone Wars, but even if it were only a false rumor, it should still get a mention. --Cromwellt|talk|contribs 04:53, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
 * If you have some good sources please WP:Be bold 8-) Ephebi 14:33, 30 July 2007 (UTC) --- PS: if this site is right it would suggest that the story is spurious, e.g. "kopros means dung and lithikos means stone in Greek".
 * The story is indeed spurious. The name was originated in 1829 almost a half century before the bone wars. I have added a short section on the history. Rusty Cashman (talk) 07:31, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Coprolite mining in the UK
Coprolite as used in relation to the coprolite mining in Cambridgeshire refers to phosphatic nodules. These nodules commonly found in the Gault Clay are not true coprolites (fossilised faeces), the term is merely used as a mining term for nodule see: Grove, R., 1976, The Cambridgeshire coprolite mining rush, Orlander Press, 51 p. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.198.91.143 (talk) 15:36, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Clarification of urolite needed
The articles mentions urolites, "erosions caused by evacuation of liquid wastes and nonliquid urinary secretions." How can a urinary secretion be alleged to occur in a non-liquid form? Urine is a liquid by definition, otherwise wastes would not pass successfully through the urethra. — O'Dea (talk) 14:34, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

This is not necessarily true. Most people mistake the white portion of reptile and bird elimination for part of the feces, but it is actually their equivalent of urine. Recall that birds and reptiles do not have separate urinary and fecal tracts, rather having a single passage called the cloaca. As birds have now been fairly convincingly shown to be maniraptors, meaning highly evolved theropod dinosaurs, it is quite reasonable to assume that, at minimum, the nonavian theropod dinosaurs also had a cloaca. 75.18.179.81 (talk) 13:38, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

But is that material liquid or not? (JT)
 * It could be a slurry or a colloid, i.e. a mixture of solid particles suspended in enough liquid to be able to flow. --Teratornis (talk) 05:08, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

There is a coprolite collector in Utah who has collected specimens since 1975 who claims to be able to identify "female" coprolites by evidence of a urinary secretion upon the top of a fecal secretion. I have two such specimens obtained from him, and I have shown these to two ranchers, both of whom immediately claimed that the specimens look just like modern cattle excretions, & the supposed "female" examples of urination occurring on top of fecal matter is unique to cows rather than bulls. Henry Mountains 7 (talk) 03:54, 7 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Interesting, but it would need a good quality source to support inclusion in the article. Personal recollections have insufficient authority .  Velella  Velella Talk 13:08, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

anning properly credited?
this article:

" It was these observations by Anning that led the geologist William Buckland to propose in 1829 that the stones were fossilized feces and named them coprolites."

Mary Anning article: "It was to him she made what would prove to be the scientifically important suggestion that the strange conical objects known as bezoar stones, were really the fossilised faeces of ichthyosaurs or plesiosaurs. Buckland would name the objects coprolites."

.... Anna Pinney, a young woman who sometimes accompanied Anning while she collected, wrote: "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."[32]

is wikipedia doing the same? more careful editing is needed — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.159.1.78 (talk) 09:46, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Dino dung, or broader?
There is an issue that, in Victorian Eastern England at least, the meaning of "coprolite" is broader than fossil faeces and referred to any phosphatic nodules found. For a significant period, there was a commercial mining industry for these.

Should the article include these, or exclude them? Either is possible, we just have to write the same coverage as a separate article, with links. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:35, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Okay, why is one of the redicrects "Dinosaur shit"?
Why? --Bubblesorg (talk) 21:10, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * ...because it's a plausible search term by people who don't know what it's called? -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 14:58, 8 December 2020 (UTC)