Stumbling upon regurgitated fruit from a case of indigestion while out for a walk is usually an unpleasant experience. However, it can take on a whole different meaning in certain contexts. For instance, if that waste has been fossilized for millions of years and you’re a dedicated fossil hunter, you might find yourself discovering one of the oldest vomits ever recorded.
Cretaceous vomit. The Østsjællands Museum in Denmark recently announced an extraordinary discovery: “regurgitalite,” which is fossilized vomit. Amateur fossil hunter Peter Bennicke made this find and reported it to the local museum.
Cretaceous diet. While the exact species behind the prehistoric vomit remains unknown, researchers believe it likely belonged to a fish that lived during the Cretaceous period. Additionally, scientists say the fish made a peculiar dietary choice: It ate sea lilies.
The fossil’s analysis reveals remains from two different species of crinoids (Crinoidea), also known as sea lilies. These invertebrates are the closest living relatives of eleutherozoa, which include starfish, sea daisies, and sea cucumbers.
Jesper Milan, a museum curator at Geomuseum Faxe, said in a press release, “It really is an unusual find. Sea lilies are not a particularly nutritious diet, as they mainly consist of calcareous plates held together by very few soft parts. But here is an animal, probably some kind of fish, that 66 million years ago ate sea lilies that lived on the bottom of the Cretaceous sea and gulped the skeletal parts back up.”
Stevns Klint. Bennicke made the discovery in Stevns Klint, an area of significant geological interest located on the Baltic coast of Denmark. This site has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 2014 and spans around 9 miles of coastal cliffs. It features geological evidence of the Chicxulub meteorite impact, which caused the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period.
More than just a curiosity. A simple piece of vomit can provide valuable insights into the diet and food chain of the late Mesozoic era, even if it raises more questions than it answers. For instance, what type of animal produced this vomit? Was it common for certain animals to consume non-nutritious prey, such as sea lilies?
According to Milan, a discovery like this “provides important new knowledge about the relationship between predators and prey and the food chains in the Cretaceous sea.”
From regurgitalite to coprolite. Fossils of regurgitated material represent a unique category in paleontology. This category also includes coprolites, which are fossilized feces formed over time. Both types of fossils can offer clues about the diets and parasites that affected long-extinct animals and our ancestors during more recent stages of prehistory.
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