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Wastes of time — faeces and vomit track how dinosaurs rose to prominence

The earliest known dinosaur fossils are at least 230 million years old, and by 200 million years ago, dinosaurs dominated global ecosystems. Reconstructing food webs using fossil evidence of feeding activity helps to explain this ascendency.
  1. Lawrence H. Tanner

    1. Lawrence H. Tanner is in the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Le Moyne College, Syracuse, New York 13214, USA.

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The earliest dinosaurs were relatively small bipedal animals, distinguished from their closest ancestors by subtle differences in hip structure. They appeared at least 230 million years ago (and perhaps earlier1), during the Carnian stage (237 million to 227 million years ago), the first of the three stages comprising the Late Triassic Period (237 million to 201 million years ago). This evolutionary milestone is documented by the fossil record in the southern part of what was, at the time, the Pangaean supercontinent. However, for tens of millions of years, these early dinosaurs remained a relatively minor component of a global landscape crowded with other reptilian forms, and clear ecosystem dominance by dinosaurs did not occur until the start of the Jurassic Period (201 million to 145 million years ago). Writing in Nature, Qvarnström et al.2 report evidence that helps to explain this rise to prominence.

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Nature 636, 301-302 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-03652-3

References

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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