• Question: Can you really get fossilised dog poo...i didnt thinnk dogs were old enough too be able to do that??

    Asked by megg to Paul on 24 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Paul Roche

      Paul Roche answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      Dogs were domesticated about 15,000 years ago apparently, and before that we would consider them to be wolves. Something can be fossilised quite rapidly (years, not millions of years), if the conditions are right, so you could get fossilised dog poo I guess. To turn it into solid rock would take a lot longer, but to “preserve” it you would just need to dehydrate it (take out all the water, e.g. in a very hot, dry desert).

      I have fossilised dinosaur poo, which is about 90 million years old – it’s just solid rock now, but people still sniff it to see what it smells like (it smells like a rock…)

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