You are what you eat — a case especially true for the prehistoric creatures that roamed Earth before us. According to a recent study published in Nature, which analyzed fossilized dinosaur poop, or coprolites, the key to survival in prehistoric times was a diet of plants instead of meat.
An international team from Uppsala University in Sweden and researchers from Norway, Hungary, and Poland examined hundreds of dinosaur coprolites and identified the different plants and animals these creatures would have eaten.
“Piecing together ‘who ate whom’ in the past is true detective work,” said Martin Qvarnström, a researcher at the Department of Organismal Biology and lead author of the study, in a press release. “Being able to examine what animals ate and how they interacted with their environment helps us understand what enabled dinosaurs to be so successful.”
Read More: A Complete Dinosaur Timeline to Extinction: How Long Did They Roam Earth?
Precise Imaging
Scientists can tell a lot about an animal based on what it leaves behind, especially poop. However, it’s a much easier task before the poop fossilizes. In the case of the study's coprolites, the research team needed a way to look inside the fossil without damaging it.
“The research material was collected over a period of 25 years. It took us many years to piece everything together into a coherent picture,” said Grzegorz Niedźwiedzki, a researcher at the Department of Organismal Biology and the study’s senior author, in a press release.
Thanks to synchrotron imaging — a type of high-intensity X-ray — the team determined the internal undigested food remains in the coprolites. With this information, they could paint a better picture of what the ecosystem would have been and what sorts of foods helped dinosaurs thrive.
“Our research is innovative because we have chosen to understand the biology of early dinosaurs based on their dietary preferences. There were many surprising discoveries along the way,” said Niedźwiedzki.
Plants Drove Early Dinosaur Evolution
The coprolite images garnered unique results. Certain foodstuffs in the coprolites were surprisingly undigested. The remains contained insects like beetles, partially digested fish, and crushed bones. For the herbivores, however, especially in long-neck sauropods, their coprolites contained lots of tree ferns and charcoal.
This glimpse into these early dinosaurs' diets and ecosystems can help fill an evolutionary gap that spans 30 million years. There is already so much known about dinosaur extinction, but not about their humble beginnings.
“Unfortunately, climate change and mass extinctions are not just a thing of the past. By studying past ecosystems, we gain a better understanding of how life adapts and thrives under changing environmental conditions,” said Qvarnström in a press release.
According to the research team, this valuable information leads them to believe that adaptability, especially in diet, was a key survival trait as the ecosystem changed.
“The way to avoid extinction is to eat a lot of plants, which is exactly what the early herbivorous dinosaurs did. The reason for their evolutionary success is a true love of green and fresh plant shoots,” Niedzwiedzki said in a press release.
Read More: The Time of Giants: How Did Dinosaurs Get So Big?
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A graduate of UW-Whitewater, Monica Cull wrote for several organizations, including one that focused on bees and the natural world, before coming to Discover Magazine. Her current work also appears on her travel blog and Common State Magazine. Her love of science came from watching PBS shows as a kid with her mom and spending too much time binging Doctor Who.
