Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2005 12:22 pm Posts: 21602 Location: San Francisco
A water worn pebble? An alluvial hunk of chert?
Nope.
This is a gastrolith.
It was found at the Morrison Formation in Colorado in the early '70's. It was retrieved, in situ, in the fossil remains of of a dinosaur who lived roughly 150 million years ago.
What is a gastrolith you ask?
Have you ever had a parakeet or other pet bird who ate gravel in order to aid in the digestion of their food?
Well, certain dinosaurs also ingested rocks in order to help them digest food. Their gizzard served as a tumbler and with the help of digestive acids, abrasion from surrounding gastroliths and plant matter, the ingested rocks were smoothed and often have a polished appearance. Occasionally, when one discovers the fossil remains of a dinosaur, they will also discover a pocket of gastroliths in the vicinity of where the gizzard would have been.
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2008 4:40 pm Posts: 2667 Location: South Dakota
hey jason...chirp..chirp..chirp(crickets) that is pretty cool..really the only way to know you have one is to actually get it from the remains of a dinosaur...never really thought about those before but makes perfect sense seeing as how pheasants and many other types of birds use them
_________________ MrAmethystguy ~ Some jokes just fluorite over my head!
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