“I noticed that it had this really weird mass of stones in its esophagus, right up against the neck bones,” says O’Connor. “This is really weird, because in all of the fossils that I know of, no one has ever found a mass of stones inside the throat of an animal.”
The placement and chemical composition of the rocks suggested that they really were swallowed by the animal during its life, instead of just washing up near its body in the lakebed where its fossil formed.
You can read more about Chromeornis funkyi and its dedication to rock here.
