Can anyone provide research on how we know that gastroliths aren’t just rocks that dinosaurs ate?

The information I’ve found so far states that one of the reasons is the smoothness rocks which could easily be explained by stomach acid and grinding on other gastroliths. The other argument that I found is the type of rock but I’m not sure I fully understand.

My thought is that it would make sense for these to be found in the stomach of plant eating dinos due to the fact that there are alot of roots that are rich in starches and other nutrients, an ideal meal but also near rocks/pebbles that were eaten right alongside.

I just saw my Ackie eat a very small white rock in his enclosure. I’ve restricted the substrate to just topsoil, play sand, and a small amount of of clay for stability, but I guess a small rock got in there somewhere. It was quite small, literally smaller in diameter than his feces, so I’m pretty sure he’d be able to pass it without issue if it comes down to it, but I want to know if this is normal or something to be concerned.

Just to be clear, gastroliths are small stones that animals like birds and crocodiles swallow to aid in digestion and to get a few more minerals into their diet.

Is this "knowledge" passed down generationally?

Would an animal that does this in the wild "know" to do this if raised in captivity?

If it's genetic, then how can such a specific instinct possibly be encoded in their genome, and how did such a thing possibly evolve?

Edit: How do they "know" when to stop eating rocks because they have enough rocks in their system; how does that whole mechanism work to de-trigger the instinct?

Edit 2: See the interesting speculative idea below from a biologist (u/CharlesOSmith):

>No I don't [know the answer]. However it strikes me as a huge coincidence that there are some psychologic conditions that drive people to eat very odd things including rocks. It would be pretty interesting if those cases involved some resurgence of an ancient instinctual programming that was activated by some environmental or genetic influence.

In your gizzard, you know they're right.

Occasionally, I send a "gizzard stone" to somebody who orders something from my Etsy store, KinesavaRocks. There may be some among you now asking the question, "What's a gizzard stone?"

https://preview.redd.it/g2vnrfcj8h651.jpg?width=1453&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4fa90bdf641ee005f5fa48acd4122c23d5d18055

Here's the Wikipedia definition:

>a rock held inside a gastrointestinal tract. [They are] used to grind food in animals lacking suitable grinding teeth.

In particular, dinosaurs.

In line with their predilection for obfuscatory elucidation, scientists use the term "gastrolith" instead of "gizzard stone". And scientists often dispute everything so there is an active debate among scientists over gizzard stones. (This is a feature, not a bug. It makes scientific conclusions more reliable.) Since 1907, some paleontologists have claimed that polished stones found in association with dinosaur bones are gizzard stones. For almost as long, other paleontologists have claimed that the first group is full of the end product of the gastrointestinal tract. "You don't know!" claims the second group. "They could be just river or beach polished rocks." (See Note 1.)

https://preview.redd.it/3lqcbnhl8h651.jpg?width=439&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=411c82cb6392a1938c82885b479235136db040f4

All very true. They could be. But I think the ones my dad found are gizzard stones.

William Lee Stokes is a paleontologist prominent in this debate. He was born in the coal-mining camp of Hiawatha in Carbon County Utah, not far from Mohrland, where my dad was born. If my dad's stories about the coal camps is accurate, my dad might have beat up Stokes in a fist fight a few times. All in fun, of course.

According to his New York Times obituary:

>Dr. Stokes was renowned for excavating the Cleveland-Lloyd Quarry in Utah, a rich deposit of Allosaurus and other dinosaur fossils now on display at museums worldwide. Eight fossil species were named after him, including the dinosaur Stokesosaurus clevelandi. He also discovered and named 13 rock formations in Utah. Dr. Stokes taught at the University of Utah for 32 years, and headed its department of geology for 13 years.

And he was on my side of the gizzard stone debate. I've talked to people who knew Stokes personally about it.

One thing that makes science more reliable is that scientists are hard to convince. (Usually. See Note 2.) In the case of gizzard stones

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I'm not even saying this in an 'animals are dumb, how?' kind of way, but if I were having digestive efficiency issues, swallowing stones wouldn't be the first thing I think of?

I really liked a book about dinosaurs when I was a kid (like 1998 to 2001 probably) but can't find it for the life of me now.

It was a series of chapter books that involved teenagers solving mysteries related to dinosaurs. I didn't read the first in the series, but the book I read had the main character (and friends?) entering a team paleontology competition. They had to figure out how a dinosaur died. It died from choking on a stone that it swallowed to aid in digestion, which is called a gastrolith. (Had to google that - didn't remember the word from way back when.) One of the clues they got was a base shaped like a teapot with a marble that wouldn't fit down the spout.

The cover was the team sitting around a table looking at the vase and it was purple.

Also, I think the book mentioned quonset huts somewhere because it was a rather mysterious word to me, but that's neither here nor there.

I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but the amount of non-dad jokes here in this subreddit really annoys me. First of all, dad jokes CAN be NSFW, it clearly says so in the sub rules. Secondly, it doesn't automatically make it a dad joke if it's from a conversation between you and your child. Most importantly, the jokes that your CHILDREN tell YOU are not dad jokes. The point of a dad joke is that it's so cheesy only a dad who's trying to be funny would make such a joke. That's it. They are stupid plays on words, lame puns and so on. There has to be a clever pun or wordplay for it to be considered a dad joke.

Again, to all the fellow dads, I apologise if I'm sounding too harsh. But I just needed to get it off my chest.

Alot of great jokes get posted here! However just because you have a joke, doesn't mean it's a dad joke.

THIS IS NOT ABOUT NSFW, THIS IS ABOUT LONG JOKES, BLONDE JOKES, SEXUAL JOKES, KNOCK KNOCK JOKES, POLITICAL JOKES, ETC BEING POSTED IN A DAD JOKE SUB

Try telling these sexual jokes that get posted here, to your kid and see how your spouse likes it.. if that goes well, Try telling one of your friends kid about your sex life being like Coca cola, first it was normal, than light and now zero , and see if the parents are OK with you telling their kid the "dad joke"

I'm not even referencing the NSFW, I'm saying Dad jokes are corny, and sometimes painful, not sexual

So check out r/jokes for all types of jokes

r/unclejokes for dirty jokes

r/3amjokes for real weird and alot of OC

r/cleandadjokes If your really sick of seeing not dad jokes in r/dadjokes

Punchline !

Edit: this is not a post about NSFW , This is about jokes, knock knock jokes, blonde jokes, political jokes etc being posted in a dad joke sub

Edit 2: don't touch the thermostat

Do your worst!

Ants don’t even have the concept fathers, let alone a good dad joke. Keep r/ants out of my r/dadjokes.

But no, seriously. I understand rule 7 is great to have intelligent discussion, but sometimes it feels like 1 in 10 posts here is someone getting upset about the jokes on this sub. Let the mods deal with it, they regulate the sub.

How the hell am I suppose to know when it’s raining in Sweden?

They were cooked in Greece.

I'm surprised it hasn't decade.

Two muffins are in an oven, one muffin looks at the other and says "is it just me, or is it hot in here?"

Then the other muffin says "AHH, TALKING MUFFIN!!!"

Don't you know a good pun is its own reword?

For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.

I said "hey look, an escaPEA"

No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!

Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂