THERE has to be a first for everything. In this week鈥檚 issue of Nature, British researchers proudly unveil the earliest known terrestrial faeces.
Dianne Edwards of the University of Wales, Cardiff, and her colleagues say that these 412-million-year-old 鈥渃oprolites are packed with the spores of early higher plants, which grew to just 2 or 3 centimetres and are related to modern ferns and club mosses.
The new finds, extracted from siltstones unearthed near the Welsh border, predate the previous oldest fossil faeces by some 90 million years. The team initially thought the coprolites were spore-bearing organs from plants. But the discovery that some contain spores from nine different species soon revealed their true identity.
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Edwards and her colleagues speculate that the animals responsible were the earliest terrestrial herbivores. Alternatively, they may have been detritivores, eating rotting plant material in the soil. Millipedes or springtails are the likeliest contenders.
Whatever the case, the animals were unable to digest the plants鈥� spores, which passed through their guts unscathed. 鈥淚t is a case of chronic indigestion says Edwards.
