66 million years of vomiting discovered by an amateur fossil hunter in Denmark: “A truly unusual finding”
A piece of fossilized vomiting, which dates back since the dinosaurs wandered the ground, was discovered in Denmark, the Museum of Eastern Zealand said on Monday.
The local amateur fossil hunter set a find on the cliffs of Sivns, a place on the UNESCO list south of Copenhagen.
While on a walk, Peter Bennicki found some unusual fragments, which proved to be pieces of sea lilies, in a piece of chalk.
He then took the fragments to the museum for examination, which vomited until the end of the chalk about 66 million years ago.
According to experts, vomiting contains at least two types of sea lilies, which probably ate fish that threw parts she couldn’t digest.
“This type of findings … It is considered very important when reconstructing past ecosystems because it provides important information about which animals were eaten by which,” said the UA Museum a statementwhich also included a picture of fossilized vomiting.
Museum of Eastern Zealand
Paleontologist Jesper Milan welcomed the discovery as “a truly unusual find,” adding that this helped explain relations in the prehistoric food chain.
“The sea lilies are not a particularly nutritious diet, because they are mostly consisting of lime plates that hold several soft parts together,” he said.
“But here’s an animal, probably a kind of fish, which was 66 million years ago ate sea lilies who lived at the bottom of the chalkal seas and regurgited the scallet parts.”
According to UNESCOThe cliffs of the Sivns offer “exceptional evidence of the impact of the Chicxulub meteorite, which collapsed on the planet about 65 million years ago,” which is believed to have been widely caused by the end of the dinosaur age.
Researchers have previously studied the ancient regurgitated remains. Last November, scientists used fossilized feces and vomiting samples from Poland to try to determine who was eating anyone 200 million years ago, Associated Press reported.
In 2018, researchers discovered fossilized vomiting while excavating in southeast of Utah, Live Science reported. In a study published in 2022. In the magazine PalaiosThese scientists have reported that they have found the remains of salamand and frog in vomiting.
