Bezoars, Madstones, Enteroliths.

I don't really know much about them, and, unfortunately, I don't usually sift through the stomach contents of deer, elk, and other ungulates I shoot. To me, these stomach "stones" are very interesting.

This is a photo of one that a friend of mine found in a Sitka blacktail deer in SE Alaska. Obviously, it's been sawn open to view the cross-section.



Any of you out there have a collection?

Jack

Interesting! Never heard of such a thing.

Would find something similar when fossil hunting in the Dickison ND formations @ 45-60 million era
mostly polished stomach stones from the reptiles was what I was told.
Interesting subject

I never knew there was such a thing. Now I will be digging in gut piles.
What wind and sand do to glass over time. This glass was from the early to mid 1940's on Chirikof Island AK.

Jack; Is that black area in the center a solid nucleus or a void in the stone ?

Interesting! How many would you find in a stomach and are they in every single deer?

Nice Beezoe.

Sorry it's not clear in the photo. The dark center is actually a "real" stone. It was probably inadvertently swallowed and became the nucleus around which the bezoar formed, much like the grain of sand in an oyster becomes the nucleus of the pearl.



JP, I think they are quite rare. I would be surprised if they are in 5% of deer, but I'm only guessing. On the other hand, I suspect that they are a lot more common than one would suspect, simply because nobody really looks for them.

Deer pearls? Seems like similar way of forming. Interesting . Never seen it, but I don’t think I’ve ever cut open a deer stomach

A widely held belief was that if bitten by a wild animal, you soak the mad stone in milk and place it on the bite to prevent Rabies!

Awesome! Be interesting to know if that occurs in other animals also.

Deerzie Pearls !

Thank you Jack, for your wonderful detailed observations.

Bezoar stones are fairly common in porcupines I believe. Used in a lot of traditional medicines I think.

Ok cool! I might take a peek at some this Fall.

I collect the gizzard stones out of wild turkeys I kill.

A twenty pound eastern gobbler.


The inner gizzard lining.

Lol Lugnut, is that all from one Turkey?

It is from that one bird. Going by the gizzards I've dissected, I'd say that's about an average amount for a two-year-old, 18-20 lb. gobbler.

I'm from as deep in the Ozarks as you can get. Madstones were collected from albino or piebald deer due to there healing property. Big Bob knew what he was talking about. My great grandma had a madstones and she would soak it in sweet milk and the wound would be healed. Do I think it cured rabies? No. I still think there was something there though. All the old timers had faith in it.

I've heard the same thing about the healing properties for snakebite. Soak the bezoar (madstone) in milk, set it on the fang-marks from a rattlesnake. The madstone will turn dark as it sucks out all the poison. Although I do put a lot of credence in old "folkllore" remedies (and a lot of them have scientific basis), the ability of a bezoar to cure snakebite is a bit too far-fetched for me.

Jack

Chinook full of baby crabs.


How does a salmon round up all those baby crabs?