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> Mr. Pint,
>
> I am a geologist working for Qatar Petroleum in Doha, Qatar. Last week
> while fossil hunting in the Miocene Dam formation, I found what I believe to
> be a coprolite (see attached picture). The horizon in which it was found
> is known to be an intertidal or sub-tidal horizon...making me believe the
> animal it came from is of marine origin.
>
> After making an internet search, I stumbled upon your website
> http://www.saudicaves.com/mx/madri/index.htm where you show what could be a
> wolf coprolite. I was wondering if you ever had this coprolite analysed in
> order to ascertain its origin?
>
> I am not saying that my coprolite comes from a similar animal but I cannot
> pass the point that even if there are few million years that separate them,
> they look very much alike
>
> Any comment or help would be appreciated.
>
> P.S.: Feel free to connect to my personal website below and download some
> interesting fossil publications
>
> All the best
>
> Jacques LeBlanc

REPLY

June 28, 2008

Hello Mr. LeBlanc!
Many thanks for your message. The picture you sent looks very much like a wolf coprolite. I attach two pictures of wolf coprolites we found in Saudi Caves. (one of the pictures shows 3 kinds of scat: fox, hyena and wolf). You might also want to look at a report on Hibashi Cave in which we added an appendix (Appendix 1) about avian and animal coprolites or excreta which we found in that cave. You can download this at: http://www.i-pi.com/~ingham/saudicaves/hib-4-12.pdf

If it turns out that your coprolite is from some marine animal, I would be most interested to hear about it. By the way, researchers in Jordan have found similar coprolites in their lava tubes.

I hope you'll let me know what else you find. We have never age-dated any of the scat we have found in so many Saudi limestone and lava caves, so we are not sure whether we should be using the word scat or coprolite. Have you found any caves in Qatar?

John Pint

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