#phytoliths — Public Fediverse posts

So I started with 3g of sediment and this is what I have left after an acid bath in HCl to get rid of carbonates, separating out the clays, baking the organics out at 500 degrees C and separating out the silica 😳 But it’s ok! Gonna have lots of microfossils to look at! #phytoliths #sponges #diatoms #microfossils #PalaeoenvironmentalReconstruction #Science

#Fossil reveals leaf-eating among earliest birds
https://phys.org/news/2023-08-fossil-reveals-leaf-eating-earliest-birds.htmp

Intra-gastric #phytoliths provide evidence for #folivory in basal #avialans of the Early #Cretaceous #JeholBiota https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-40311-z

"The #pheasant-sized #Jeholornis, a member of the second most primitive lineage of #birds, has teeth and a long bony tail like its predatory, feathered #dinosaur relatives... It had eaten tree leaves from a group of flowering #plants called #magnoliids."