Abstract
Small faecal pellets in Ordovician shelly fossils from Estonia, Baltoscandia
Highlights
Trace fossils are important environmental indicators and provide valuable knowledge of animal behaviour in the geological past (Seilacher 2007)
In this paper we report abundant occurrence and high diversity of small faecal pellets preserved inside different shelly fossils from Middle and Upper Ordovician carbonates of the Baltoscandian palaeobasin
The pellets are elliptical or rodshaped, 0.1–1.8 mm long and 0.08–0.75 mm in diameter, with the length/diameter ratio ranging from less than 2 to ca 6. They occur in shells of gastropods, bivalves, cephalopods, brachiopods, echinoderms and trilobites and represent two ichnospecies, Coprulus oblongus and Coprulus bacilliformis, and some intermediate forms belonging to the same ichnogenus
Summary
Trace fossils are important environmental indicators and provide valuable knowledge of animal behaviour in the geological past (Seilacher 2007). Like all softbodied organisms, coprolites have generally a low preservation potential. Their findings from Palaeozoic siliciclastic sediments are mostly related to deeperwater settings with high sedimentation rates and specific preservation conditions. The majority of faecal pellet ichnotaxa in carbonates have characteristic inner structure and belong to the ichnofamily Favreinidae. Small faecal pellets with an ornamented outer surface are assigned to a number of different ichnogenera Heer 1853; Elliott 1963; Gramann 1966; Gaździcki 1974; Gaillard 1978; Agarwal 1988; Živković & Bogner 2006), whereas isolated faecal pellets without internal structure and ornamentation are representing the ichnofamily Coprulidae (Knaust 2008) Small faecal pellets with an ornamented outer surface are assigned to a number of different ichnogenera (e.g. Heer 1853; Elliott 1963; Gramann 1966; Gaździcki 1974; Gaillard 1978; Agarwal 1988; Živković & Bogner 2006), whereas isolated faecal pellets without internal structure and ornamentation are representing the ichnofamily Coprulidae (Knaust 2008)
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