[UPDATE: Several paleontologists have written to express amused disgust at the reasoning ascribed to this research team, and to note that the team some time ago “left to pursue other opportunities”. One correspondent also noted that the lead author once studied fossilized crab droppings from the Pierre Shale and published a study with the title “Pierre Feces“.]
[An] intriguing and important scientific question — did dinosaurs pee? And, if so, where’s the evidence?
A husband-wife team from South Dakota Tech thinks it may have found the answer. Dr. Gale Bishop, director, Museum of Geology, and Kata McCarville, on leave from her position of director of Instructional Technology Services to pursue a doctorate in Geology, have been working on this research…. [They wrote:] “The volume of liquid required to form a scour structure as large as the one in question suggests it may represent the expulsion of liquid wastes from one of the sauropod dinosaurs crossing the tracksite. There is no known source for an elevated stream of fluid except the large (16-ton) dinosaurs crossing the site.”
So reported the SDSM&T Magazine in the Spring 2003 issue.
(Thanks to investigator Steve Farrar for bringing this to our attention.)