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摘要：
瑞典地质学家最近发现了约5亿年前的一只小虫遗留下来的粪便。现在，这小堆粪便已经成为了颇有研究价值的化石。
Swedish geologists have found fossilized feces from a worm that lived some 500 million years ago, media reports said Wednesday.
瑞典地质学家最近发现了约5亿年前的一只小虫遗留下来的粪便。现在，这小堆粪便已经成为了颇有研究价值的化石。
据美联社4月12日报道，这一小堆粪便是由瑞典地质学家马特·埃利克森和弗莱德里克·特费尔特在瑞典南部的马尔默附近发现的。当时，这小堆粪便嵌在岩石立面中。
埃利克森告诉当地媒体说，他们检验了粪便样本中的磷含量水平。“我们马上意识到它可能不是别的什么，正是一块粪化石，换句话说就是变成化石的粪便。”特费尔特还形容这个发现是世界上“独一无二”的。他说：“研究寒武纪的科学家们一定会对此感兴趣。”
报道说，埃利克森和特费尔特在瑞典南部的隆德大学研究地质学。目前，他们正在撰写一篇有关这个发现的文章，文章完成后，将被发表在相关的国际杂志上。埃里克森透露说，文章的题目已被定为《反常的面孔及古代粪便》（Anomalous faces and ancient feces）。
Geologists Find Ancient Worm Feces
Swedish geologists have found fossilized feces from a worm that lived some 500 million years ago, media reports said Wednesday.
The tiny piles of feces were found embedded in rock-face near Malmo in southern Sweden by geologists Mats Eriksson and Fredrik Terfelt, newspaper Sydsvenskan reported.
Eriksson told the newspaper they examined the level of phosphorus of the samples and that "we realized pretty soon that it could not be anything other than coprolites, in other words fossilized dung."
Terfelt described the find as "unique."
"Cambrian scientists will certainly find them very interesting," Terfelt said.
The two are researching geology at Lund University in southern Sweden, and said they are working on an article about the find that will be published in an international magazine shortly.
"It is inevitable to joke about this, so we gave it the title ‘Anomalous faces and ancient feces,‘" Eriksson said.
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