It was an ordinary day. Writing today about, of all things, poop. Story began in Williams, Arizona with.....One way to help tell how a Tyrannosaurus rex ingested food is to look at its poop! Bone fragments in a piece of fossilized excrement at a new museum in northern Arizona - aptly called the Poozeum - are among the tinier bits of evidence that indicate T. rex wasn't much of a chewer, but rather swallowed whole chunks of osprey. The sample is one of more than 7,000 on display at the museum that opened this past May in Williams, a town known for its Wild West shows along Route 66, wildlife attractions and a railway to Grand Canyon National Park. The Poozeum sign fetters a bright green T rex cartoon character sitting on a toilet to grab attention from the buzzing neon lights and muffled 1950s music emanating from other businesses. Inside, display cases filled with coprolites - fossilized feces from animals that lived millions of years ago - line the walls. They range from minuscule termite droppings to a massive specimen that weighs 20 pounds. Poozeum's president and curator, George Frandsen, bought his first chunk of fossilized feces from a shop in Moab, Utah, when he was 18, he said. He already loved dinosaurs and fossils, but had never heard of fossilized poop. From there, his fascination grew. "It was funny. It was gross," he said. "But I learned very quickly it could tell us so much about our prehistoric past and how important they are to the fossil record." Fossil enthusiast Brandee Reynolds recently visited the museum with her husband after finding it was a short detour from a road trip they had planned. "I mostly find sharp teeth and things like that," she said. "But, who doesn't love coprolite?" A highlight of Frandsen's collection is a specimen that holds a Guinness World Record for being the largest coprolite left by a carnivorous animal. Measuring more than 2 feet long and over 6 inches wide. And...I'm sorry that this is where my story ends today. There are no photos other than the one of President and curator George Frandsen who is posing in the "Poozeum" in Williams, Arizona. I just couldn't find it in me to post photos of poop! I believe you all know what that looks like anyway. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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| Mr. George Frandsen |
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