Terrifying specimen reveals origin of 'beast planet'

Specimens that make most people frown explain why Earth became a "monster planet" during three geological periods.

During the Earth's "age of beasts" - spanning the three geological periods of the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous - dinosaurs, as well as pterosaurs in the sky and mosasaurs and ichthyosaurs in the water, underwent an astonishing evolution in size and diversity.

They are thought to have first appeared in the mid-Triassic period, were small, about the size of a lizard or slightly larger, and shared their habitat with many other ancient species.

During the following Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, while many other animal classes were continually replaced in extinction events, these reptiles persisted, becoming increasingly numerous and larger.

At the end of the Cretaceous period, we had a planet filled with giant monsters, with titanosaurs weighing tens of tons, pterosaurs with wingspans of over 10 meters.

The power behind that incredible expansion has just been revealed through the kind of fossil that will make you wince: Dinosaur vomit and poop.

Giant skeleton of a titanosaurus - (Photo: AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY).

Researchers from Uppsala University (Sweden) searched for such fossils from more than 500 sites in the Polish Basin, which contains the remains of beasts from the Triassic to Jurassic periods.

Fossilized dinosaur vomit and feces—called regurgitalite and coprolite —can actually provide a wealth of information, according to evolutionary biologist Martin Qvarnström, co-author.

This information includes diet, feeding behavior, physiology, and even the parasites that lived in the stomachs of ancient creatures.

Scientists have found everything from tiny beetles to fish, bones, teeth and half-intact plant remains.

They even found a fragment of the skull of a temnospondyl amphibian.

"No one could have guessed that such huge temnopsondyls would attract predators. It's really easy to break teeth on such a huge skull," says Dr Qvarnström.

Another piece of vomit contained the bones of a small crocodile.

All told, these ancient beasts were more omnivorous than any creature on modern Earth.

Evolutionary history has shown one thing clearly: The less picky a species is, the better its chances of survival.

For prehistoric reptile lineages, this gave them a chance to thrive, even during periods of extreme climate change that drove other species to extinction.

Because they could eat everything, they were always full and at the same time had the opportunity to continue to grow larger and larger, expanding further into previously barren lands.

Unfortunately for them—but perhaps fortunately for us—the beasts that grew so huge in the Cretaceous period eventually succumbed to a series of catastrophic events triggered by the Chicxulub asteroid impact 66 million years ago.