A brand-new fossil find on display at Geomuseum Faxe during winter break. It is a lump of 66-million-year-old vomit found at Stevns Klint and recently declared a fossil find.
In plain old Danish, a small amount of fossilized vomit has been found at Stevns Klint. Finds like this are rare, and the Danekræ Committee has just declared the fossilized vomit fossil find. In scientific terms, this type of find is called a regurgitalite, and they are considered very important for reconstructing past ecosystems because the finds provide crucial information about which animals were eaten by whom.
The find was made by local fossil hunter Peter Bennicke, who discovered a strange little cluster of sea lilies in a piece of chalk he had just split. He brought the find to Geomuseum Faxe, where it was cleaned and examined by Dutch sea lily expert John Jagt.
The expert concluded that the accumulation consisted of at least two different species of sea lilies mixed together in a round lump, and that it must be the remains of sea lilies that had been eaten by an animal that had then regurgitated the indigestible parts of the sea lilies.
Curator at Geomuseum Faxe and member of the Danekræ Committee Jesper Milàn explains:
"This is a really unusual find. Sea lilies are not a particularly nutritious diet as they are mainly composed of calcareous plates held together by a few soft parts. But here is an animal, probably some kind of fish, that 66 million years ago ate sea lilies that lived at the bottom of the chalk sea and regurgitated the skeletal parts. Such a find provides important new knowledge about the relationship between predator and prey and the food chains in the Cretaceous sea."
Fossilized Vomit to Be Displayed at a Museum
If you’d like to see the new fossil find the cliff, you’ll have the chance during winter break (weeks 7 and 8), when it will be on display in a small special exhibition at Geomuseum Faxe.
Fact: What isfossil find fossil findfossil find
The termfossil findwas introduced in 1989 to describe naturally formed objects discovered in the ground that are of exceptional natural-historical value. Like “danefæ,fossil find fossil find the state and must be turned in to one of the state’s natural history museums. The Danekræudvalget (Danekræ Committee) has been established by the Natural History Museum of Denmark and determines whether submitted finds should be declared fossil find.”
Further information:
Jesper Milan, Curator, Geomuseum Faxe: jesperm@oesm.dk, tel: 30242543