A Gastrolith is a stone that would have been consumed by a Dinosaur in order to help with or digest food. They were found in or near remains of dinosaurs/prehistoric life that lacked grinding teeth. They occurred mainly in the Jurassic era, but occasionally found in the Cretaceous. Discovered in 1906, George Reber Weiland reported pieces of worn-down pebbles near and associated with fossils of plesiosaurs and sauropods. However, Barnum Brown was the first to realize these stones were for digesting. Later, ceratopsians and toothless theropods, such as Caudipteryx, but also species such as hadrosaurids, diplodocids, prosauropods, and (rarely) ichthyosaurs, were associated with Gastroliths.
