Concretion or coprolite?

[Lone Hunter]

Picked this up in creek that is mostly Eagle Ford but is downstream from where it cuts through QAL.  Pretty sure it's a concretion but given it has a few inclusions want to make sure it's not coprolite, and yes I read the post on the subject but still left me unsure so best to leave it up to the experts!

[hemipristis]

Looks like a coprolite to me

[Lone Hunter]

Good to know I'm on the right track, thank you!  Any ideas on what it came from?

[GeschWhat]

Yep, I vote coprolite. Although, it looks more like a coprolite from the Ozan Formation.

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

11 hours ago, Lone Hunter said:

Good to know I'm on the right track, thank you!  Any ideas on what it came from?

 

If @GeschWhat says it's a coprolite, I've good faith that that''s indeed what it is - though I must admit this looked a lot like a concretion to me when I first saw it. You can probably do a phosphate test on it (there should be descriptions of that on the forum, though I wouldn't quite now where any more) if you want to make sure.

 

The problem with identifying the origin of a coprolite, however, is that, unless, in the same area, a fossil has been found of an animal "producing it", as it were, there's very few lines of evidence to tie one to the other. Of course inclusions may give a hint as to whether the "author" was carnivorous, piscivorous, herbivorous, or otherwise. But if this results in multiple candidates for your area, it's going to be hard to associate the manufacturer with their product. The easiest way, therefore, is to try and find out if anybody else has already found and described similar coprolites in your area, since, as far as I'm aware, certain groups of animals produce excrement with similar morphologies (in part, this appears to have to do with the way the waste exits the intestines).