Admire the World’s Largest Collection of Fossilized Poop at the New ‘Poozeum’ in Arizona

Everyone poops—even dinosaurs. If you’re curious about the bowel movements of now-extinct creatures like Tyrannosaurus rex and prehistoric sharks, you’re in luck: You can now visit an entire museum dedicated to fossilized fecal specimens.

It’s named, fittingly, the Poozeum, and it opened earlier this year in Williams, Arizona, a small town about an hour south of the Grand Canyon. The museum is home to the world’s largest collection of coprolites, or bits of fossilized dung.

The museum’s owner, George Frandsen, has been fascinated by coprolites since he was a teenager. Over the last few decades, he’s amassed an impressive collection of fossilized poo that includes some 8,000 different pieces, reports the Arizona Republic’s Meredith G. White.

Frandsen initially used his coprolite collection to launch an online resource center in 2014. Then, he made a traveling exhibition and took it to museums across the country.

Based on the positive responses those temporary exhibitions elicited, he decided to go all-in and open his own permanent, dedicated space. He quit his corporate healthcare job, sold his house and moved across the country to establish the Poozeum, per Guinness World Records’ Vicki Newman.

Admission is always free, any day the museum is open. “I believe it’s important that everyone, regardless of their ability to pay, has the opportunity to enjoy and learn from these fossils,” Frandsen tells Smithsonian magazine in an email.

Since 2015, Frandsen has held the Guinness World Record for the largest collection of coprolites. He also owns the world’s largest coprolite from a carnivore, a specimen named Barnum that measures more than two feet long and up to about six inches wide—and it weighs more than 20 pounds. More than likely, Barnum was dropped by a T. rex, but experts can’t be totally certain.

Museum-goers can see Barnum for themselves, along with lots of other fossilized stool in all shapes and sizes.

“There are pieces that are truly one of a kind, including a dinosaur bone that has a coprolite on it, showing that an animal pooped on a dinosaur bone, and they fossilized together,” Frandsen tells the Arizona Republic. “There is also a gar fish that has poop lodged in its teeth—both fossilized together, indicating that it intentionally or accidentally ate poop prior to death.”

Other prized possessions include petrified wood that contains termite poop, spiral-shaped shark turds and even fossilized farts emitted by insects in Baltic amber.

“Millions of years ago, these bugs got trapped in the tree sap. They got covered and their body released gas, probably because the bacteria started to expand when they died and it came out the back,” Frandsen tells Popular Science’s Laura Baisas. “Well, it got stuck, because the sap was so thick, it got stuck right at their butt.”

When visiting the Poozeum, you can also look at coprolites with bite marks, coprolites that contain bones and teeth, coprolites embedded in rocks and coprolites that are smaller than a nickel. Get an up-close look at “Precious,” one of the largest true-to-form coprolites in the world, as well as “Betty Crocker,” a crocodile fossil that contains fossilized poop from an undigested fish.

“Every poop tells you a story about a certain time,” Frandsen tells Thrillist’s Rob Kachelriess.

The museum also has art—check out a four-foot replica of a titanosaur turd or admire The Stinker, a bronze statue of a T. rex sitting on a toilet inspired by Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker. Want to take home a souvenir? Stop by the gift shop for cheeky toys, t-shirts, decor and fossils (many of which are also available online).

Dinosaur poop collection - Guinness World Records

Watch on

Coprolites may seem like all fun and games, but they’re actually highly valuable to scientists. Fossilized poop serves as a time capsule of sorts, offering up information about its maker’s diet, anatomy and health. They can also offer clues about historic environmental conditions.

“What got me interested in finding and collecting coprolites is the story they tell of prehistoric life and ecosystems,” Frandsen said in a 2016 Guinness World Records video. “No other fossils can tell you so much as coprolites can.”

Sarah Kuta | READ MORE

Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.