Textbooks always showed Dinosaurs eating grass. But, scientists said that grass did not become common until long after the dinosaurs died at the end of the Cretaceous period, 65 million years ago. Some solutions can be predicted to this ever-going controversy. Recent microscopic examination of fossilised dinosaur dung from India shows that the last massive plant-eating dinosaurs munched heaping helpings of at least five different types of grass. Tiny silica crystals called phytoliths which grow inside plant cells is the key evidence. To add to their conclusion, it is also found that phytoliths can survive digestion. The tiny crystals are dated at 65 to 70 million years old. These are about the same age as the oldest previous evidence of grass – fossil pollen found in India, South America, and North Africa. Researchers thought it came from a very primitive grass or an early relative, as all grass pollen looks the same.
Via: Reuters, New Scientist