Phytoliths in Dino Teeth Give Clues to Diet

[Richard W Travsky <rtravsky@uwyo.edu>]

This is from the October 20th Science News. The web site is

 http://www.sciencenews.org/20011020/note12.asp

but unless you have a subscription you can't get to it.

Excerpt

 Even flossing wouldn't have helped
 Sid Perkins
                    
 From Bozeman, Mont., at the 61st annual meeting of the
 Society for Vertebrate Paleontology 

 Small particles trapped in minuscule cracks or pits in
 the fossilized teeth of some plant-eating dinosaurs could give
 scientists a way to identify what types of greenery the ancient
 herbivores munched. 
 ...
 Different types of plants produce phytoliths that look alike, but some
 groups of species generate distinct crystal forms. Krauss
 analyzed the phytoliths  produced by living relatives of the ancient
 plants found in the fossil layers holding the dinosaurs. 

 The sizes and shapes of crystals from the fossil teeth suggest that the
 ceratopsian dinosaurs, relatives of Triceratops, may have eaten a high
 proportion of tough-leafed cycads, whereas the hadrosaurs, or duck-billed
 dinosaurs, probably favored ferns. 

This issue also has articles (also from SVP) on a juvenile Triceratops and
horn growth and a fossil site at a kitty litter pit (also by Sid
Perkins).