Dinosaur Dung Is Big Draw For Small Museum

[matcom]

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CENTRAL POINT, Ore. -- A display of dinosaur dung is turning out to be the big draw at a local museum.

Frank Callahan, the past president of the Roxy Ann Gem & Mineral Society that owns and operates the Crater Rock Museum housing the fossilized feces, suggests it be labeled "coprolite."

"That's the polite way of saying dinosaur dung," he said as he bent over to pick up a specimen.

With last week's revelation that scientists have recovered soft tissue from a 70-million-year-old fossilized bone of a Tyrannosaurus rex found in a sandstone formation in Montana, dinosaurs are back in the news.

While the nonprofit museum, which was founded in 1954, also has dinosaur eggs and dinosaur bones, its the "dino plops" that invariably bring a smile to visitors.

"The first thing adults do is smell it," he said. "Of course, there is no smell."

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