Grass phytoliths found in dinosaur dung

[Ken Kinman]

Dear All,
      Been a while since I touched on this subject here (see grasses and gondwana thread, 20 June 2002).  But we now have physical evidence (coprolites) showing that some late Cretaceous dinosaurs ate grasses (and a variety of types of grasses at that).  Not really surprising that this occurred in India (being part of Gondwana back in the Mesozoic).  As I said back in 2002, gondwanatheres (mammals) probably ate grasses too, and their molars indicate that they may have even specialized in eating grasses.  But dinosaurs probably just ate grasses when something better (without phytoliths) wasn't available.

     However, I haven't seen the actual paper, so I'm still not sure what was meant when these grasses were described as "highly evolved" types.  Does this mean "highly evolved" (derived) subfamilies of Family Poaceae?  Or does it mean derived families of the Order Poales (including families closely related to Poaceae)?  Anyway here is a link to one news item:
 http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8336

        -----Cheers,
                  Ken Kinman