For some children, a highlight of their education is breaking owl pellets apart to find out what prey the birds cannot digest!
Owls vomit pellets because they swallow their food whole, which is then digested in two separate stomachs. Food that cannot be digested, like bones, are pressed into a pellet that the owl vomits.
Now, a discovery shows that, much like owls, some ancient pterosaurs vomited food that they could not digest as pellets.
The scientists found pellets containing fish scales near two Kunpengopterus sinensis pterosaurs (in the picture).
The fossils were found in Yanliao, an area in northern China. It is famous for its high number of fossils from animals and plants that lived during the Jurassic period.
