NBC News has a story about fossilized vomit. Yes, fossilized vomit, Unlike coprolites, which are fossilized dung, regurgitalites are rare in the fossil record. A danish fossil hunter, Peter Bennicke, found a strange clump of sea lily fragments embedded in chalk. He took it to the Geomuseum Faxe in November 2024, where a museum curator cleaned and analyzed it. It was determined to be the remains from at least two species of sea lilies.
Regurgitalites, or fossilized vomit, are rare but invaluable to scientists studying ancient ecosystems, as they reveal what predators ate and how food chains functioned millions of years ago, the museum said.
Milàn said a Cretaceous-era predator, possibly a fish, most likely consumed the sea lilies and later spat out the indigestible parts.
“It is truly an unusual find. Sea lilies are not a particularly nutritious diet, as they mainly consist of calcareous plates held together by very few soft parts," Milàn said in a Østsjællands Museum news release.
