Fossilised reptile poo contains 200-million-year-old parasites

Fossilised faeces of a crocodile-like predator dwelling 200 million years in the past reveal the animal was contaminated with a number of parasite species. Evidence of historic parasites is notoriously arduous to search out within the fossil report, so this discovery can assist give us an image of how they unfold from species to species.

Parasites infect animals’ smooth tissues, which not often protect effectively over time. So Thanit Nonsrirach at Mahasarakham University in Thailand and his colleagues analysed a pattern of fossilised dung, additionally known as a coprolite, that was first unearthed in 2010 from the Huai Hin Lat Formation in north-eastern Thailand.

“I wanted to know what’s inside the coprolite, so I decided to cut it open and examine its internal structure,” says Nonsrirach.

The form and contents of the faeces helped the researchers slender down which creature it got here from. They first photographed and measured the coprolite earlier than hardening it with an epoxy resin. They then lower the log – 7 centimetres lengthy and a couple of centimetres thick – into skinny, salami-like slices.

When the staff examined the slides below the microscope, they discovered parasite eggs in a variety of styles and sizes trapped within the droppings. The eggs had been principally spherical and oval, and across the thickness of a human hair. The staff suspects as many as six parasite species – together with intestinal worms known as nematodes from the order Ascaridida – are represented within the historic faeces.

The researchers concluded that the excrement was most likely left by an armoured, semi-aquatic reptile that appeared like and lived equally to a contemporary crocodile. “Considering that crocodiles appeared around 100 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous, it is likely that the coprolite came from a crocodile-like animal or one that co-evolved with crocodiles, such as phytosaurs,” says Nonsrirach.

Based on the stays of historic vegetation and animals additionally discovered within the space, the researchers estimate the specimen is from the early Late Triassic Epoch, round 237 million to 208 million years in the past. “This discovery is crucial for understanding the variety of parasites and how they interacted in ancient ecosystems,” says Nonsrirach. He suspects the animal ingested the parasites by feeding on contaminated fishes, amphibians or different reptiles.