Origin of the faeces? World’s longest poo belonging to an unidentified 'dinosaur' measures an 'eye-watering' 40 inches - and it could fetch $10,000 at auction 
 
 Longest prehistoric animal dung on Earth up for auction in Los Angeles 
 
 It measures 40 inches in length and is 5.3 to 33.9 million years old 
 
 
 
 Auctioneer I.M. Chait expects it to reach $10,000 when under the hammer 
 
 
 
 Fossilised feces of this sort if is known as coprolite and can reveal diet info 
 
 
 
 However researchers aren't sure what dinosaur it originated from 
 
 
 
 The world’s longest prehistoric animal dung is set to go up for auction next week. 
 
 
 
 The fossilised excrement dates back to the Oligocene and Minocene Epochs, which makes it anywhere from 5.3 to 33.9 million years old. 
 
 
 
 Found in Lewis County, Washington State the giant dung is expected to reach £4,700 to £5,800 ($8,000 to $10,000) when it goes under the hammer on 22 July 
 
 
 
 The longest ancient animal dung on Earth (shown) is going up for auction in Los Angeles. It measures 40 inches (one metre) in length and has a pale brown-yellow colour. Auctioneer I.M. Chait expects it to reach up to £5,800 ($10,000) when it goes under the hammer on 22 July 
 
 WHERE IS ALL THE DINOSAUR POO? 
 
 The lack of vast amounts of fossilised dinosaur feces has baffled scientists for years. 
 
 However, Slovakian researchers believe the answer lies in the diet of cockroaches, which might have dined on dinosaur waste millions of years ago. 
 
 Using cutting-edge imaging methods, the scientists discovered particles of wood inside an ancient cockroach’s gut, which they think came from dinosaur feces. 
 
 Researchers from the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Slovakia said that dinosaurs certainly must have produced a lot of feces, and yet fossils of the waste are not very widely discovered. 
 
 ‘Although appearing trivial, cockroaches, one of the dominant insect orders during the Mesozoic, were never examined as representing top candidates for partial processors of dinosaur dung,’ they wrote in their study. 
 
 The dung is what is known as coprolite, fossilised feces that can provide information about an animal’s diet rather than just its appearance. 
 
 
 
 It is described by Beverly Hills auctioneers I.M. Chait as an ‘eye-watering 40 inches [one metre] in length’. 
 
 
 
 However, research has failed to reveal what animal the excrement originated from. 
 
 
 
 ‘This truly spectacular specimen is possibly the longest example of coprolite - fossilised dinosaur feces - ever to be offered at auction,’ said Josh Chait, spokesman for the auctioneer. 
 
 
 
 'It boasts a wonderfully even, pale brown-yellow colouring and terrifically detailed texture to the heavily botryoidal [globular] surface across the whole of its immense length. 
 
 
 
 ‘The passer of this remarkable object is unknown, but it is nonetheless a highly evocative specimen of unprecedented size.' 
 
 He continued that the specimen was 'presented in four sections, each with a heavy black marble custom base, an eye-watering 40 inches [one metre] in length overall.’ 
 
 Despite being many millions of years old the excrement is not thought to have belonged to a dinosaur though, as these animals existed only up until 66 million years ago. 
 
 
 
 Also for sale are a selection of five stool-shaped specimens thought to have come from a Miocene turtle, 23.03 to 5.332 million years ago, estimated to sell for £2,300 to £3,500 ($4,000 to 6,000). 
 
 
 
 'Although it is often impossible to tell which species produced these fascinating petrified feces, it is supposed that the fine examples found in a small area of Washington State are from a Miocene turtle,' said Mr Chait. 
 
 'It is also suggested that rather than being coprolites, they are in fact cololites, internal casts of the intestine.' ||||| Have a few thousand dollars burning a hole in your pocket? 
 
 May we suggest you indulge in the completely sensible purchase of a decorative piece of prehistoric poop for your family home? 
 
 Beverly Hills-based auction house I.M. Chait is offering a few specimens on the auction block this Saturday, including droppings from dinosaurs and a 40-inch piece estimated to be between 5 and forty million years old. 
 
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 The auction house takes the oversell approach on the sample’s description page. 
 
 “This truly spectacular specimen is possibly the longest example of coprolite ever to be offered at auction,” it breathlessly reports. “It boasts a wonderfully even, pale brown-yellow coloring and terrifically detailed texture to the heavily botryoidal surface across the whole of its immense length. The passer of this remarkable object is unknown, but it is nonetheless a highly evocative specimen of unprecedented size, presented in four sections, each with a heavy black marble custom base, an eye-watering [uh eye-watering?] 40 inches in length overall.” 
 
 Fossilized poo — known in mature circles as coprolite — can actually provide paleontologists with a surprising amount of data, including information about diet, timeline and locations of the species of origin. 
 
 Others — for whatever reason — prefer to collect them. 
 
 Last May, the auction house sold this set of coprolite for $5,185. 
 
 Aren’t they beautiful?
– This Saturday, a Beverly Hills gallery plans to auction off a piece of crap—literally. The IM Chait Gallery says it will put a 40-inch-long piece of excrement up for auction, and it hopes to fetch around $10,000, LiveScience reports. Why the big bucks? The "eye-watering" poop "boasts a wonderfully even, pale brown-yellow coloring and terrifically detailed texture ... across the whole of its immense length," reads the gallery's description. Oh, and the fossilized dung (or coprolite) could be 33 million years old, according to the auctioneers. Though it's not known which species excreted it, it's going up for sale alongside five smaller pieces of "petrified feces" found in Washington state and thought to be from Miocene turtles, a spokesperson tells the Daily Mail. Paleontologists might buy the poop to examine it for more data, like information on diet, but collectors like buying the stuff too, Boston.com reports. A 130-million-year-old pile of dinosaur poop sold for almost $1,000 in New York in 2008, and Chait has sold a few smaller coprolites before for around $6,000 each. So what makes this one so special? "I've never seen anything close to this in terms of size," the gallery's natural history director says. It's even been mounted on black marble and displayed in four pieces so it won't break during shipping. (Last month, a Neanderthal latrine yielded the oldest human poop ever discovered.)