A stone swallowed by an animal and held in its stomach to help grind and digest food, like teeth inside the belly.
From gastro- (Greek gaster, 'stomach') + -lith (Greek lithos, 'stone'). This term describes the actual stones found in dinosaur and modern animal digestive systems.
Paleontologists find gastroliths in dinosaur fossils and know exactly which rocks these creatures deliberately swallowed—it's like finding a dinosaur's digestive aids fossilized for millions of years!
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