**Originally Listed At $200**

Africa, Madagascar, ca. 60 million years ago. A fossilized coprolite from a turtle, with the original material replaced by silicates and calcium carbonates in browns and reddish browns (the red caused by iron). Coprolites, fossilized feces, are trace fossils that give us evidence of what ancient turtles ate. These stones were once called bezoars; the fossil hunter Mary Anning noted that they were often found in the abdominal region of the numerous fossilized animals she observed along the coast of England, and her observations led William Buckland, the Oxford-educated theologian and one of the fathers of paleontology, to propose in 1829 that they were in fact fossilized feces, which he named "coprolites" and used to understand the diets of ancient animals. Size: 1.85" W x 9" H (4.7 cm x 22.9 cm)

Provenance: private Chicago, Illinois, USA collection

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#136310

Intact with light deposits on surface.