SPEAKER 1: There doesn't seem to be
much to find out on the prairie near Choteau, Montana.
But for paleontologists like Cory Coverdell,
this is hallowed ground.
CORY COVERDELL: So this area is famous
for its spectacular preservation of baby dinosaurs, eggs,
and those sorts of things.
We are very well-known among paleontologists,
and there are a lot of people who have come and studied here.
SPEAKER 1: In fact, the discovery
that dinosaurs cared for their young was made in these hills.
CORY COVERDELL: The very first baby dinosaurs found in a nest
anywhere in the world were discovered here.
SPEAKER 1: And so researchers continue
to search outcroppings in the hope of making a big discovery.
CORY COVERDELL: They're looking for skeletons, for baby bones,
especially.
SPEAKER 1: But some scientists are seeking treasure
of a different variety--
fossilized poop.
KAREN CHIN: These little magic packages
can provide really special perspectives on ancient life.
My name is Karen Chin, and I study ancient ecosystems.
And to do that, I often look at fossilized feces.
SPEAKER 1: Technically known as a coprolite.
KAREN CHIN: So skeletal fossils, they don't always
tell you too much about the behavior of animals,
whereas if you look at fossil feces,
they are a byproduct of feeding activity of an animal.
But in addition to diet, they can also
tell you about what organisms might have been living along
with the animal that defecated.
And coprolites can also tell you about the conditions
under which they were preserved.
As such, they give us a totally different perspective
on an ancient environment than we get from the bones.
SPEAKER 1: Unfortunately, these fecal fortunes
are far more rare than skeletal bones.
KAREN CHIN: It's a little bit paradoxical that an animal only
died once in its lifetime, but it
defecated gazillions of times.
But even so, coprolites from terrestrial animals
are much rarer than their skeletal fossils.
SPEAKER 1: The scarcity has a lot
to do with how fossils are formed.
KAREN CHIN: Most fossils are preserved
when they are buried rapidly.
That is often a flood event or some landslide.
But in addition to that, you have
to have some mineralizing agent.
SPEAKER 1: Like phosphorous or calcium
from the bones and tissues of a carnivorous dinosaur's prey.
KAREN CHIN: But if you take dung from herbivorous animals,
in order to preserve those, you actually
need an external source of a mineral.
Paradoxically, that comes from the bacteria that
are feeding on fossil dung.
Their metabolic activities can cause
minerals to precipitate out.
SPEAKER 1: In either case, the resulting coprolites
can be incredibly difficult to identify.
KAREN CHIN: Fossil feces can have many different colors.
It can be pancake.
They can be bulbous.
They can be sausage-shaped.
And we have to look at several different techniques
to try and determine if it is fossil feces or just
a pretty rock.
SPEAKER 1: Once she's fairly certain she's
got the real deal, Dr. Chin can begin
to investigate its origins.
KAREN CHIN: You don't know who the poopetrator was, right?
I will first see if I can see anything recognizable
on the surface, such as dietary residues
or burrows from an organism that burrowed in
after it was deposited.
I may make a thin section of it.
I cut out a little piece, and then I
grind that down so you can see through it.
Again, it's almost like you're in the field.
You're searching around the slide.
Oh, what is that?
Clues that say, these are plant cells.
These are animal cells.
This is a piece of bone.
It's a piece of shell.
SPEAKER 1: Dr. Chin and her colleagues
can then start to get into the nitty gritty.
KAREN CHIN: I might do a chemical analysis of it
to see what kind of mineralogy it had.
You can look at organic geochemical analyses
or isotopic analyses.
This is kind of a new field in studying coprolites.
SPEAKER 1: And with new techniques
can come new insights.
KAREN CHIN: One of my colleagues, James Super,
analyzed some coprolites from the Arctic.
Inside he found compounds that give us clues about how warm
it was 78 million years ago above the Arctic Circle.
SPEAKER 1: But of all the coprolites
Dr. Chin has examined, none have provided more insights
than those from Western Montana's Two Medicine
Formation.
KAREN CHIN: I have spent many years
studying these coprolites.
And one thing that they revealed early on
was the presence of very distinctive burrows
that indicate the activity of dung beetles.
SPEAKER 1: As well as the occasional snail shell.
More importantly--
KAREN CHIN: They were filled with tiny pieces
of conifer wood.
SPEAKER 1: Dr. Chin mulled over those wood fibers
until she realized that the dinosaur that ate them
wasn't just munching on a pine tree.
KAREN CHIN: The wood had actually
been rotted before the dinosaurs ingested it.
We don't have modern mega herbivores
like elephants making a practice of feeding on rotting wood.
So that was a real surprise.
SPEAKER 1: But Dr. Chin had a hunch
that maybe these duck-bill dinosaurs had been snacking
on something else entirely.
KAREN CHIN: Invertebrates frequent rotting wood.
So if those dinosaurs needed a good source of protein,
they'd go to a rotten log.
And that's a great way to find proteinaceous invertebrates.
SPEAKER 1: Her hypothesis was backed up
when colleagues at the Denver Museum of Natural History
and Science made their own fecal find.
KAREN CHIN: They found coprolites
in the Kaiparowits Formation, which
is the same age as the Two Medicine.
They also have rotted wood inside.
They also have evidence of dung beetles inside.
But in addition, they have actually pieces of
broken up crustaceans.
They were clearly broken up.
So they were ingested.
SPEAKER 1: Put together, these plain lumpy rocks
reveal a whole ecosystem.
KAREN CHIN: We have hadrosaurs.
We have conifers.
We have white rot fungi.
And we have dung beetles and snails
all in this one ecosystem.
And we have fossil evidence of how these guys interacted.
We can't get that from simple body fossils.
SPEAKER 1: Out on the prairie of Western Montana,
precious coprolites are waiting to be dug up.
You probably wont see them displayed
in a museum like fossil bones.
But theyre sure to provide us a spectacular glimpse
into the ancient past.
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