Observing a Triassic Polish ecosystem through coprolites

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A new study looked at coprolites from the Poreba site, a turtle-dominated fossil assemblage from the Upper Triassic of Poland. These coprolites originated from sharks, medium-sized omnivorous or carnivorous tetrapods (likely turtles), mid-size carnivorous archosaurs (likely theropods), and an indeterminate big herbivorous tetrapod (likely a dicynodont or an aetosaur). Food residues, several eggs (possibly belonging to parasites), and microorganisms were found within the coprolites. Several pieces of evidence suggest that many of these coprolites belong to turtles, such as the high amount of turtles in the assemblage, the adequate size of the coprolites, and the fact that the coprolites were produced by a carnivore of low metabolic rate, which is seen in extant turtles. This implies that one of the common turtles in the site, Proterochersis porebensis, was partly piscivorous, but possibly supplemented this diet with plants and other diversified foodstuffs. The semiaquatic habitat of this genus helps to provide a taphonomic explanation of the relative abundance of turtle remains in the site. Some of the coprolites attributable to sharks and possible theropods also contain abundant fish remains. Here is an image of the ecosystem at the Poreba site and a link to the paper describing this study.



Paper (abstract only): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031018219300306?via%3Dihub