William Buckland - Coprolites and The Lias Food Chain

Coprolites and The Lias Food Chain

The fossil hunter Mary Anning had noticed that stony objects known as "bezoar stones" were often found in the abdominal region of ichthyosaur skeletons found in the Lias formation at Lyme Regis. She also noted that if such stones were broken open they often contained fossilized fish bones and scales as well as sometimes bones from small ichthyosaurs. These observations by Anning lead Buckland to propose in 1829 that the stones were fossilized feces and coin the name coprolite, which came to be the general name for all fossilized feces, for them. Buckland also concluded that the spiral markings on the fossils indicated that ichthyosaurs had spiral ridges in their intestines similar to those of modern sharks, and that some of these coprolites were black because the ichthyosaur had ingested ink sacs from belemnites. He wrote a vivid description of the liasic food chain based on these observations, which would inspire Henry De la Beche to paint Duria Antiquior, the first pictorial representation of a scene from deep time. After De le Beche had a lithographic print made based on his original watercolour, Buckland kept a supply of the prints on hand to circulate at his lectures. He also discussed other similar objects found in other formations, including the fossilized hyena dung he had found in Kirkdale Cave. He concluded:

In all these various formations our Coprolites form records of warfare, waged by successive generations of inhabitants of our planet on one another: the imperishable phosphate of lime, derived from their digested skeletons, has become embalmed in the substance and foundations of the everlasting hills; and the general law of Nature which bids all to eat and be eaten in their turn, is shown to have been co-extensive with animal existence on our globe; the Carnivora in each period of the world's history fulfilling their destined office, — to check excess in the progress of life, and maintain the balance of creation.

Buckland had been helping and encouraging Roderick Murchison for some years and in 1831 was able to suggest a very good starting point in South Wales for Murchison's researches into the rocks beneath the secondary strata associated with the age of reptiles. Murchison would later name these older strata, characterized by marine invertebrate fossils, as Silurian after a tribe that had lived in that area centuries earlier. In 1832 Buckland presided over the second meeting of the British Association, which was then held at Oxford.