About 150 million years ago in what is now Utah, an animal choked on tiny frogs and salamanders. Then he missed his lunch. Fast forward to the present day, when a team of paleontologists identified and examined the fossil vomit, unraveling mysteries along the way.
Researchers publish The study of vomiting in Paleos end of last month. Scientists have found frog bones, including some that may have come from tadpoles, and pieces of salamanders. “Aspects of this new fossil, involving the arrangement and concentration of bones in sediments, animal mixtures, and the chemistry of the bones and matrices, suggest that the heaps of bones were exterminated by predators.” Utah State Park In a statement on Tuesday.
This fun illustration shows two fish, one hunting and the other throwing up prey.
Brian Ing
Who is throwing up? Vomiting dates back to the late Jurassic, when dinosaurs like the enormously sized Brachiosaurus and armored Stegosaurus were still around. Shout out to Rebecca Hunt-Foster, a paleontologist at Dinosaur National Monument in Utah, for coining the phrase “Jurassic Barf”. However, the vomit did not come from the dinosaurs.
The excavation site, known for its plant remains, has long been a pond, home to amphibians and fish. Researchers found that puffins are more likely to throw up. It is possible that the ancient fish flipped over to distract predators. Utah State Parks notes that paleontologists jokingly refer to the fossil record as “fish-vomiting tadpoles.”
Although it occurred several million years ago, vomiting is a common sight.
“There are three animals that we still have today, which interact in ways that are also known between animals: prey that is eaten by one predator and a predator that can be chased by another predator,” said study co-author John Foster, curator. of Utah. Museum of the Casa del Campo. From the Taman Negara Natural History Museum. “This in itself shows how similar some ancient ecosystems are to places on Earth today.”
Researchers hope to find more similar fossils within the Morrison Formation in Utah, a historical layer that also holds many dinosaur remains. Puke may not seem like the most fascinating of paleontology topics, but it’s an interesting (and somewhat dirty) window into life from long ago.
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