Capers: A food for Upper Cretaceous dinosaurs of Pisdura, India

摘要

Pisdura, a well-known Upper Cretaceous dinosaur locality in Warora district, Maharashtra is known for reptilian coprolites. Based on their external morphology, coprolites can be grouped under four main types (A, B, Ba, C)1. Coprolites described by various workers1"3 from this area contain exclusively vegetal matter and their association with titanosaurid sauropod skeletal remains reflects that these animals were the producers1'4"9. Though recovery of plant remains from these coprolites is scarce andfragmentary, a few records of megaflora (dicots and mono-cots, including pollen and cuticles) have also been described5'6'8. Presence of mono-cotylednous seeds belonging to the family Arecaceae was reported earlier10. Recovery of grass phytoliths from all known categories of coprolites mentioned above suggests that Late Cretaceous titanosaurid sauropods of Pisdura were grass-eaters and grass was present during the Late Cretaceous9. Occurrence of chelonians has been reported from the Lameta Formation ofPisdura11'12. It is likely that other carnivorous reptiles also must have been thriving in the same phytozones.