Coprolite (Probable Shark Fecal Pellet)

    This Coprolite, or fossilized fecal pellet, is likely shark.  Note the spiral cast suggesting passage through a shark's rectum.  This specimen was collected from an Upper-Cretaceous Cenomanian marine mudstone in north central Texas (Turner Park Member, Eagle Ford Group).  Abundant vertebrate remains including cranial plates, jaws, teeth, vertebra and other skeletal material are found and suggest a robust nektonic community consisting of sharks, plesiosaurus, mosasaurus, xyphactinus and saurodontid fish once existed.  This specimen is approximately 4.5 cm. long.

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