{"id":20985,"date":"2025-01-28T16:21:55","date_gmt":"2025-01-28T17:21:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=20985"},"modified":"2025-01-28T17:26:44","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T17:26:44","slug":"66-million-year-old-fossilized-vomit-is-found-in-denmark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=20985","title":{"rendered":"66 Million-Year-Old Fossilized Vomit Is Found in Denmark"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In the Cretaceous period, a shark or another kind of fish found sea lilies less than digestible. What you might expect followed.<\/p>\n

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Let\u2019s be candid here. Vomit is something you want to get rid of. You don\u2019t want it hanging around for a day, or an hour, or even a few minutes.<\/p>\n

And certainly not for 66 million years.<\/p>\n

And yet, scientists say, vomit that old has been found in the Cliffs of Stevns, a white chalk cliff and UNESCO World Heritage site on the Danish island of Zealand.<\/p>\n

Sometime in the Cretaceous period, a shark, or perhaps another kind of fish, made a meal of some sea lilies. But sea lilies \u201caren\u2019t that great to eat, because they are almost only skeleton,\u201d said Jesper Mil\u00e0n, the curator of the Geomuseum Faxe. \u201cSo they took what they could and threw up the rest.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then the vomit was lost to the mists of time. Until last November, when an amateur fossil hunter, Peter Bennicke, split a piece of chalk and discovered it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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For decorum\u2019s sake, we had now better switch to a formal scientific name for fossilized vomit: regurgitalite. Ah, no, let\u2019s just stick with \u201cvomit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Mil\u00e0n speculated that the source of the vomit could have been a bottom-dwelling shark, one with crushing teeth, not sharp teeth. If that hypothesis is correct, the closest living relative would be the Port Jackson shark, found in Australia in modern times, he said.<\/p>\n

Though 66 million-year-old vomit is very old vomit, it falls short of a record. Dr. Mil\u00e0n knows of finds from Germany dating back 150 million years. This was, however, the first find of its kind in Denmark, he said.<\/p>\n

The upchuck has attracted attention from all over, including China, Russia and the Arab world, Dr. Mil\u00e0n said.<\/p>\n

And why does he think it has already gained such renown?<\/p>\n

\u201cJournalists are big boys,\u201d he said. \u201cThey like a story about vomit.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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And he added, \u201cWith the world situation, this is a funny story the world can relate to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now you may be laughing, too. Fine, go ahead. Barf is so funny. Ha-ha.<\/p>\n

But fossilized vomit can be informative to scholars, because it can reveal who ate what when.<\/p>\n

And this particular sample of vomit has been officially classified as \u201cdanekrae,\u201d a designation saved for Danish objects of \u201cexceptional natural historical value.\u201d That means the vomit belongs to Denmark, not the finder, and must be turned over to a natural history museum.<\/p>\n

This vomit with \u201cexceptional value\u201d will be displayed in the Geomuseum Faxe, in the town of Faxe, about 48 miles by car south of Copenhagen, over the winter holiday.<\/p>\n

As Dr. Mil\u00e0n said, with perhaps more solemnity than you might expect, \u201cThis is the most famous piece of puke in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In the Cretaceous period, a shark or another kind of fish found sea lilies less than digestible. What you might expect followed.Let\u2019s be candid here. Vomit is something you want to get rid of. You don\u2019t want it hanging around for a day, or an hour, or even a few minutes.And certainly not for 66 million years.And yet, scientists say, vomit that old has been found in the Cliffs of Stevns, a white chalk cliff and UNESCO World Heritage site on the Danish island of Zealand.Sometime in the Cretaceous period, a shark, or perhaps another kind of fish, made a meal of some sea lilies. But sea lilies \u201caren\u2019t that great to eat, because they are almost only skeleton,\u201d said Jesper Mil\u00e0n, the curator of the Geomuseum Faxe. \u201cSo they took what they could and threw up the rest.\u201dAnd then the vomit was lost to the mists of time. Until last November, when an amateur fossil hunter, Peter Bennicke, split a piece of chalk and discovered it.For decorum\u2019s sake, we had now better switch to a formal scientific name for fossilized vomit: regurgitalite. Ah, no, let\u2019s just stick with \u201cvomit.\u201dDr. Mil\u00e0n speculated that the source of the vomit could have been a bottom-dwelling shark, one with crushing teeth, not sharp teeth. If that hypothesis is correct, the closest living relative would be the Port Jackson shark, found in Australia in modern times, he said.Though 66 million-year-old vomit is very old vomit, it falls short of a record. Dr. Mil\u00e0n knows of finds from Germany dating back 150 million years. This was, however, the first find of its kind in Denmark, he said.The upchuck has attracted attention from all over, including China, Russia and the Arab world, Dr. Mil\u00e0n said.And why does he think it has already gained such renown?\u201cJournalists are big boys,\u201d he said. \u201cThey like a story about vomit.\u201dAnd he added, \u201cWith the world situation, this is a funny story the world can relate to.\u201dNow you may be laughing, too. Fine, go ahead. Barf is so funny. Ha-ha.But fossilized vomit can be informative to scholars, because it can reveal who ate what when.And this particular sample of vomit has been officially classified as \u201cdanekrae,\u201d a designation saved for Danish objects of \u201cexceptional natural historical value.\u201d That means the vomit belongs to Denmark, not the finder, and must be turned over to a natural history museum.This vomit with \u201cexceptional value\u201d will be displayed in the Geomuseum Faxe, in the town of Faxe, about 48 miles by car south of Copenhagen, over the winter holiday.As Dr. Mil\u00e0n said, with perhaps more solemnity than you might expect, \u201cThis is the most famous piece of puke in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20987,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20985"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20988,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20985\/revisions\/20988"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}