tyrant turd

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <th81@umail.umd.edu>]

The paper in question, by the way, is:

Chin, K., T.T. Tokaryk, G.M. Erickson & L.C. Clark.  1998.  A king-sized
coprolite.  Nature 393: 680-682.

Typical "crappy" work by Karen Chin (in other words, quite excellent) and
colleagues.  (I'm sure she realized what she was stepping into when she
started as a coprolite specialist.)

accompanied by the News & Views article:
Andrews, P. & Y. Fernandez-Jalvo.  1998.  101 uses for fossilized faeces.
Nature 393: 629-630.

The issue just came out today, so it will be awhile before it reaches
various libraries.

In case you were wondering, and to steal (Smithsonian shark expert & vert
paleo librarian Bob Purdy's line), they determined it was from T. rex by
process of elimination. :-)

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Vertebrate Paleontologist     Webpage: http://www.geol.umd.edu
Dept. of Geology              Email:th81@umail.umd.edu
University of Maryland        Phone:301-405-4084
College Park, MD  20742       Fax:  301-314-9661