66-million-year-old vomit found in Denmark: 'Most famous piece of puke in the world'

USA Today

28-01-2025

Vomit normally isn't celebrated, or something people ogle over, but exceptions can seemingly be made when it is 66 million years old.
Peter Bennicke, a local fossil hunter, discovered the blob of vomit at the Cliffs of Stevns, a UNESCO-listed geological site on the Danish island of Zealand that's comprised of about 9 miles of fossil-rich coastal cliff, the Museum of East Zealand said in a news release.
Danish officials said the fossil belonged to an animal, and the contents of the vomit contained sea lily remains. Dutch sea lily expert John Jagt concluded that the throw-up consisted of two different species of sea lilies mixed into a clump and that the creatures were eaten by another animal that had subsequently regurgitated the indigestible skeletal parts of their bodies, according to the release.
"It is truly an unusual find. Sea lilies are not a particularly nutritious diet, as they mainly consist of calcareous plates held together by very few soft parts," Jesper Milàn, a Danish paleontologist and curator of Geology at Geomuseum Faxe, said in the release.
What does the vomit's discovery mean?
Milàn predicted that a fish ate the sea lilies that were living at the bottom of the Cretaceous Sea, which according to the Utah State University Prehistoric Museum, was a narrow and shallow sea that connected the modern Gulf of Mexico and the modern Arctic Ocean.
The vomit's discovery provides important and new knowledge about the relationship between predators and prey, and the food chains in the Cretaceous Sea, Milàn said.
According to UNESCO, the Cliffs of Stevns contain "exceptional evidence of the impact of the Chicxulub meteorite that crashed into the planet about 65 million years ago," which is commonly believed to have caused the extinction of dinosaurs.
Sea lilies, also known as crinoids, have declined in diversity since their kind peaked about 300 million years ago, but over 650 living species are known, and they remain abundant in many marine habitats ranging from shallow coral reefs to the floors of oceanic trenches, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.
The vomit can be viewed at a Denmark museum
The throw-up is also classified as "Danekræ," which is a designation for Danish objects of 'exceptional natural historical value.' This means the vomit belongs to Denmark and not its finder, Bennicke, so it must be turned over to a natural history museum.
The vomit will be placed in a small special exhibition at the Geomuseum Faxe Museum in Faxe, Denmark during the winter holidays for people to view, according to the release.
Milàn called the vomit "the most famous piece of puke in the world," the New York Times reported.