Steve and I started talking about arrowheads, then other
artifacts, and finally our conversation turned to dinosaur bones and
fossils.
It was a natural transition, sitting as we were above a maze of gumbo badlands where Indians, plesiosaurs and homesteaders had each left something in the land.
“Did you ever find a gizzard stone?” Steve asked at one point in the conversation, a break in our hunt for scoured-country mule deer. I thought maybe that was some homespun term for a gallstone or an enlarged prostate. “Nope,” I told him. “Not yet.”
It was clear I didn’t know what he was talking about, so Steve enlarged on the topic. “They’re from dinosaurs, the stones that the dinosaurs used to grind up food in their gizzards. Sometimes you can find them in places like this. You’ll come up to a hardpan flat and there will be tons of fist-sized rocks and other gravel. But there will be these egg-sized, smooth rocks, polished like they went through a tumbler. Those are gizzard stones.”
Because Steve grew up in Glendive, and has spent more time in Makoshika State Park than most mortals, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. But privately I thought he was kooky. In fact, as we left our lunch spot, I pointed to some creeping juniper and told him: “Yeah, we call that ‘Unicorn Beard’ because it was fur for fantasy creatures, sort of like your gizzard stones.”
The way Steve reacted — stung, like I had insulted his sister — somehow made me believe his far-fetched tale. So that night when I got home, I consulted the oracle at Wikipedia. Sure enough, there was an entry for gastroliths, “also called a stomach stone or a gizzard stone, a rock held inside a gastrointestinal tract.”
The entry went on to indicate that crocodiles, herbaceous birds, seals and sea lions have these digestive rocks in their guts, and that many herbaceous dinosaurs also had them, and when they died, left them in the very sort of fossil-rich country Steve and I were hunting. Paleontologists have found fossilized gastroliths all over Montana’s badlands and — just as Steve described — they are typically identified by smooth-surfaced stones amid the rubble of the badlands.
Tonight I called Steve, partly to apologize for my skepticism, partly to tell him that I was cooking my supper with a new fuel. It might look like natural gas, but I call it “dragon’s breath.”
It was a natural transition, sitting as we were above a maze of gumbo badlands where Indians, plesiosaurs and homesteaders had each left something in the land.
“Did you ever find a gizzard stone?” Steve asked at one point in the conversation, a break in our hunt for scoured-country mule deer. I thought maybe that was some homespun term for a gallstone or an enlarged prostate. “Nope,” I told him. “Not yet.”
It was clear I didn’t know what he was talking about, so Steve enlarged on the topic. “They’re from dinosaurs, the stones that the dinosaurs used to grind up food in their gizzards. Sometimes you can find them in places like this. You’ll come up to a hardpan flat and there will be tons of fist-sized rocks and other gravel. But there will be these egg-sized, smooth rocks, polished like they went through a tumbler. Those are gizzard stones.”
Because Steve grew up in Glendive, and has spent more time in Makoshika State Park than most mortals, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. But privately I thought he was kooky. In fact, as we left our lunch spot, I pointed to some creeping juniper and told him: “Yeah, we call that ‘Unicorn Beard’ because it was fur for fantasy creatures, sort of like your gizzard stones.”
The way Steve reacted — stung, like I had insulted his sister — somehow made me believe his far-fetched tale. So that night when I got home, I consulted the oracle at Wikipedia. Sure enough, there was an entry for gastroliths, “also called a stomach stone or a gizzard stone, a rock held inside a gastrointestinal tract.”
The entry went on to indicate that crocodiles, herbaceous birds, seals and sea lions have these digestive rocks in their guts, and that many herbaceous dinosaurs also had them, and when they died, left them in the very sort of fossil-rich country Steve and I were hunting. Paleontologists have found fossilized gastroliths all over Montana’s badlands and — just as Steve described — they are typically identified by smooth-surfaced stones amid the rubble of the badlands.
Tonight I called Steve, partly to apologize for my skepticism, partly to tell him that I was cooking my supper with a new fuel. It might look like natural gas, but I call it “dragon’s breath.”
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