The new study describes the ‘faecal revolution’ to explain a crucial turning point in animal and environmental evolution on Earth. The new research, to be published in Trends in Ecology & Evolution, gives an alternative view to this remarkable diversification. “The faecal matter includes microscopic pellets through to centimetre-scale coprolites containing shells and other animal fragments,” says Dr Bicknell, an evolutionary biologist and palaeobiologist who specialises in arthropods. “With this shift, we see increasingly complex digestive systems, particularly in early anthropods which evolve specialised foreguts and digestive glands capable of processing a wider variety of food. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2026.06.013Funding: This research was funded through an Australian Research Council (grant DE250100256) and a MAT Program Postdoctoral Fellowship – both to Dr Bicknell.