Evidence has been found in Utah that shows plant-eating dinosaurs during the Cretaceous Period around 75 million years ago were eating crustaceans in their diet.
Signs of crustacean shells have been found in fossilized feces, also known as coprolites, which were discovered during a dig in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. At least ten different samples of coprolites were found in a thirteen-mile area around the national monument. Because of the frequency of crustacean consumption evidence, Karen Chin believes that the crustaceans were consumed by the dinosaurs intentional, either for an extra source of protein or because of a seasonal diet shift. Chin is the curator of paleontology at CU Boulder’s Museum of Natural History and is also an associate professor at CU.
The discovery of the crustacean shells in the coprolites is odd, because these dinosaurs known from the Cretaceous Era, Hadrosaurs, are known to be herbivores, eating only plants.
