The key to dinosaurs being successful on Earth is hidden within fossilised poo

Experts say fossilised dinosaur poo and vomit have provided the key to how the animals came to rule the Earth.

From fossils of gigantic dinosaur spiders to a feathered dinosaur tail, there has been fascinating evidence of dinosaurs uncovered all around the world.

A recent study has looked at fossilised faeces and vomit, collectively known as bromalites, to try and understand and reconstruct what the animals fed on. Doing so has helped experts nail down how they became the dominant species on Earth.

Study co-author Martin Qvarnström, who looks at dinosaur evolution at Uppsala University in Sweden, and his colleagues examined over 500 bromalites.

Cutting open the 200 million-year-old fossils collected from the Polish Basin in Central Europe, the team found remains including fish, plants and insects, many of which were well-preserved.

“Some of them were so beautifully preserved in three dimensions and with all the antennae and legs,” Qvarnström said.

Thanks to their well-preserved nature, the researchers were able to establish food webs over a long time period.

They found that the contents of the fossils increased in variety and number over time, suggesting that larger dinosaurs, which had more diverse feeding habits, achieved greater dominance in the late Triassic period (between 237 million and 201 million years ago).

Evidence suggests that the adaptability of dinosaurs was also key to their rise, as they were better able to adapt their diets as the climate shifted and changed the vegetation available.

Qvarnström explained: “What we learnt was that the rise of dinosaurs, it took quite a long time, and it was really complex.”

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