Regurgitalite
trace fossil
Regurgitalites, or sometimes regurgitaliths, are the fossilized remains of stomach contents or oral cavity material that has been regurgitated by an animal. Modern examples include owl pellets. They are bromalite trace fossils and can be subdivided into ichnotaxa. Regurgitalites provide valuable information about the diet and feeding behaviors of extinct animals, though they are rarely reported in the fossil record because they are difficult to identify and distinguish from coprolites.
Terminology
The term "regurgitalite" was proposed by Adrian Hunt in 1992 as "consonant with coprolite and cololite, to refer to regurgitated material." The alternate spelling "regurgitalith" appeared in Bertling et al. (2006), though this was an unintentional orthographic variation rather than a proposed new term. The German synonym Speiballen (literally "vomit ball") has also been used in the literature.
More specific terminology has been developed for particular types of regurgitalites. "Strigilite" refers to fossilized owl pellets, derived from the Latin strix (owl). "Ornithoregurgitalite" is used for regurgitalites produced by birds generally, while "gastroregurgitalite" specifically refers to material regurgitated from the stomach rather than the oral cavity.
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This entry incorporates text from “Regurgitalite” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.