Coprolites

Coprolites have been studied for almost 200 years. Key workers include William Buckland, who first identified and named coprolites, Eric Callen, who recognized the importance of human coprolites and Paul Martin, who sparked interest in Pleistocene coprolites and their palynology. Bromalite are a grouping of trace fossil related to feeding that include regurgitalites, consumulites and coprolites. It is important that coprolites be given binomial names (an ichnotaxonomy). The earliest probable vertebrate coprolites are Ordovician in age, but invertebrate coprolites date back to the Early Cambrian. Both vertebrates and invertebrates have important coprolite fossil records through the remainder of the Phanerozoic. The producers of a few distinct invertebrate coprolites can be recognized at the family level, but many cannot even be attributed to a Phylum. Vertebrate coprolites can usually be assigned to a producer at the ordinal level. Coprolites have diverse utility in invertebrate and vertebrate paleobiology and other fields of study.