#gastroliths

[unbfacts]

Many birds swallow tiny stones, often called grit or gastroliths, because they do not have teeth to chew food. The stones sit in the gizzard, a strong muscular part of the stomach, where they help grind seeds and other food into smaller pieces for digestion.

[kedreeva]

Your tags about there maybe being rocks outside with your peas made me wonder, do peas eat small rocks to help with digestion the way chickens do?

Yes!

[iknowdino]

I Know Dino Podcast Show Notes: Nigersaurus (Episode 246)

I Know Dino Podcast Episode 246: New #Triceratops, Psittacosaurus, and #sauropod #fossils. Plus #dinosaur of the day Nigersaurus, the Darth Vader vacuum cleaner of the Cretaceous.

Join at the Tyrannosaurus level by August 21, 2019 to get a signed copy of our new book  https://www.patreon.com/iknowdino

Episode 246 is all about Nigersaurus, the Darth Vader vacuum cleaner of the Cretaceous.

Big thanks to all our patrons! Your support means so much to us and keeps us going! If you’re a dinosaur enthusiast, join our growing community on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/…

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[ask-palaeoblr]

Sauropod gastroliths. Is that theory disproved or not? If so, how did they grind up their food?

[earthstory]

Gastroliths

This awesome sample of the ceratopsian dinosaur Psittacosaurus was originally found in the Cretaceous aged rocks of Mongolia, and it is currently on display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The ribs of this dinosaur are filled with rolled, polished, somewhat smooth stones. These stones were once gastroliths, swallowed by the dinosaur to aid in digestion by grinding and mixing food. In modern animals, bits of rock are found in the digestive tract all the time. Unsurprisingly since you’re looking at a dinosaur fossil, these stones are most commonly found inside birds. They range from stones even larger than these to tiny bits of sand. Many organisms use them for that purpose, but there are other proposed reasons to find rocks in an organism’s digestive tract. Some ocean-going organisms including sea lions and crocodiles have been proposed to swallow stones for buoyancy, although this is controversial as some stones could just be swallowed accidentally while feeding and not every member of a population will be using them at once. Other organisms will even grow stones inside them, sometimes to store minerals for later use and sometimes to cover an irritant as happens when oysters form pearls.

This sample is particularly special because you can actually see the gastroliths in position, verifying that this organism swallowed them. Polished stones that could have been swallowed once are found in many sedimentary units around the world, including units that contain huge numbers of dinosaur fossils. However, if you find a polished stone in a sedimentary unit but it isn’t literally inside the dinosaur, it is obviously difficult to prove it was once swallowed, as sedimentary processes can polish stones as well.

-JBB

Image credit: Ryan Somma https://flic.kr/p/5miJX1

References: http://bit.ly/2ABsv2t https://www.app.pan.pl/archive/published/app52/app52-001.pdf

[aces-scribbles]

animal name:  Quadium

diet: a gastroliths/Insectivore

are they aggressive:  very aggressive attacks anything even each other

how big is the creature:  9.2 ft and 2ft wide

how long do they live: 29 years

herd or solo: solo

fun fact: they can attack by launching the crystals on their tails they crystals can regrow quickly. 5min-10mins

[curiositymine]

The secret weapon of crayfish: In this video, Dr. Elizabeth Smith explains crayfish gastroliths (or bioliths) and how this quirk of evolution allows crayfish -- hard-shelled creatures -- to grow as they mature. This video was created with the support and participation of the Australian Opal Centre in Lightning Ridge, NSW, Australia.