2008/05/01 by Antonio Arillo, Vicente M. Ortuño · 1 citation
Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Biology #Cenozoic #Dung beetle #Ecology #Ecosystem #Evolution and Paleontology Studies #Paleontology #Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology #Scarabaeidae Beetle Taxonomy and Biogeography #Zoology
paper · doi:10.1080/00222930802105130
openalex publication_date 2008/05/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
It is widely accepted that Mesozoic ecosystems were basically similar to Cenozoic ecosystems and it has been proposed that the role of dung‐beetles in those ecosystems was identical to that of today, but the dung of dinosaurs were used as a source of food instead of the dung of mammals. While dinosaurs have been known since Triassic, Scarabeids are present in the fossil records probably since Lower Jurassic. But a very important metabolic feature of dinosaurs has not been taken into account, the connection between digestive and uro‐genital systems. So here we propose the hypothesis that coprophagy in dung‐beetles has been associated, since it began, with mammals.