Ancient Animal Regurgitation: A Fossil Discovery

The Prevalence of Regurgitation in Animals

Humans aren’t the only animals that lose their lunch. Just look at your family dog or cat—or, for that matter, the ancient upchuck recently found by a fossil hunter in Denmark. This phenomenon is not unique to humans; it’s a common occurrence in the animal kingdom.

Scientific Understanding of Regurgitalite

Scientifically speaking, the find is regurgitalite—or the stony remains of an animal’s stomach contents. It is a remarkable fossil specimen that, like other trace fossils, shows how ancient animals made use of their environments. Regurgitalite is a type of fossil that provides valuable insights into the eating habits and digestive systems of ancient animals.

The Discovery of Regurgitalite in Denmark

Local fossil hunter Peter Bennicke spotted the fossilized remains in a chunk of chalk in Denmark’s Stevns Klint (or Cliffs of Stevns), on the island of Zealand. The hurl dates back to 66 million years ago—the late Cretaceous period, when the dinosaurs were unwittingly living out their last days on Earth.

Analysis of the Regurgitalite Specimen

According to a Østsjællands Museum release, the specimen was cleaned and studied by John Jagt, a sea lily expert. Jagt concluded that the upchuck consisted of two ancient species of sea lilies, clumped up and amorphous enough that it appeared to have been puked up by an animal. The researchers do not believe the sea lilies were consumed by a dinosaur in the ancient Cretaceous seas, but by an ancient fish.

The Digestive System of the Ancient Fish

“Sea lilies are not a particularly nutritious diet, as they mainly consist of calcareous plates held together by very few soft parts,” said Jesper Milan, a curator at the Geomuseum Faxe, in a museum release. “But here is an animal, probably a type of fish, that 66 million years ago ate sea lilies that lived on the bottom of the Cretaceous sea and regurgitated the skeletal parts back up.” This suggests that the ancient fish had no issue with the sea lilies’ inedible bits, because they could simply be spewed up while the fish digested the parts of the animals it could keep down.

The Significance of Regurgitalite

Ancient upchuck is having a moment in the limelight. Late last year, a team of paleontologists published a comprehensive analysis of dinosaur vomit (and poop, too!) from what is now Poland. Those findings, published in Nature, revealed how dinosaurs adapted to their environments and shaped them through their habits. Indeed, vomit and feces are ichnofossils that show how symbiotic ancient walks of life were, and regurgitalites, are an important piece in that puzzle.

Display of the Regurgitalite Specimen

According to the Østsjællands Museum, the Danish regurgitalite will be on display at the Geomuseum Faxe this winter. But if you can’t make it to Denmark, the photo above will have to do. Either way it won’t smell like vomit—a fact for which we are all grateful.