Dinosaurian gastroliths.

  • Wieland, G. R. (George Reber), 1865-1953.
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Dinosaurian gastroliths. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    [Rrprinfetl frovi Science, N. S., Vol. XXIII., No. 595, Pages 819-821, May 25, 1906. ] DINOSAURIAN GASTROLITIIS. The occurrence of worn and polished quartz pebbles in such close association with plesiosaur skeletons of the Kansas chalk as to suggest that in life these reptiles were pebble swallowers was first noted by Pro- fessor Mudge and later by Williston.1 More recently these observations of Mudge and Williston have been confirmed in the most conclusive manner by Mr. Barnum ^Brown,2 who found siliceous pebbles almost invariably accompanying the plesiosaur skeletons, which occur in considerable number in the Niobrara shales of South Dakota. In some instances the pebbles were even found en masse, in one large specimen as many as a half bushel being present, ranging from the size of a walnut to four inches across. From the regularity of appearance and asso- ciation, Mr. Brown, as it seems to one familiar with the Dakotan Niobrara shales, is very correctly led to the conclusion that these peb- bles served as ‘ stomach stones.’ Such attri- tion stones, I was some years since informed, are habitually swallowed by the Florida alli- gators, and doubtless the habit of swallowing stomach stones, or gastroliths, as I shall con- veniently call them, is and has been wide- spread amongst the reptilia, partly as in the birds. ’Field Columbian Museum Publication (Chi- cago), No. 73, p. 75. 2 Science, N. S., Vol. XIX., No. 501, pp. 184, 185, August 5, 1904.