Paleontologists have discovered the oldest navel known to science in a 125 million year old fossil of a dinosaur from the genus Psittacosaurus. Oh, the fossil also had the first dinosaur ever found.
As I mentioned life sciences, Psittacosaurus lived during the Cretaceous period, which was between 145 and 66 million years old, and scientists discovered this navel after exposing the fossil to a focused beam of laser light.
Artist’s impression of the Psittacosaurus. Image credit: Jagged Fang Designs
These scientists reported their findings in the journal BMC Biologie On June 7, they say they discovered a “fine trace of an umbilical scar” which is a “slight irregularity in the pattern of skin and scales on the belly of a dinosaur that is the reptile equivalent of the belly button of a mammal “.
While fetal mammals get their nutrients from the placenta, birds and reptiles get what they need from a yolk sac attached to their abdomen via blood vessels. When these types of creatures hatch, the yolk is absorbed into the body and a scar remains in the abdomen.
For most birds and reptiles, the scar heals within days or weeks, but some reptiles, including alligators, may have a scar “beyond sexual maturity.” This fossil has shed new light on dinosaurs and gives an indication that some dinosaurs had these early unhealed scars.
The fossil, known as SMF R 4970, was an ancient ceratopsian species called Psittacosaurus mongoliensis that belonged to a group of beaked herbivores that includes Triceratops. Discovered almost 20 years ago, it is so well preserved because the dinosaur was “fossilized while lying on its back”. It also led scientists to discover the previously mentioned “perfect” and “unique” hole.
Using LSF imaging, we identified the characteristic scales surrounding a long umbilical scar in a specimen of Psittacosaurus, similar to [scars in] Paleontologist Michael Pittman, an associate professor at the School of Life Sciences at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said in the statement: “We call this type of scar the navel, and it is the smallest in humans. ‘man. . . its exceptional state of preservation. »
Besides its importance to science, this fossil has also been the subject of a “fierce repatriation debate”. The fossil was discovered in an unknown region of China in the 1980s or 1990s and “allegedly smuggled out of the country to European underground markets before being purchased and displayed in 2001 at the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt, Germany”.
“There is an ongoing debate regarding the legal ownership of this specimen, and efforts to return it to China have been unsuccessful. Our international team of Australian, Belgian, British, Chinese and American members all hope to find and support an amicable settlement. solution to this ongoing debate. We think it’s important to note,” the researchers wrote in their paper. That the specimen was acquired by the Senckenberg Museum to prevent its sale into private hands and to ensure that it is available for scientific study. ”
For more dinosaur information, check out that Tyrannosaurus Rex may actually have been three separate dinosaurs and the dinosaurs recently discovered in England called ‘Hell Heron’ and ‘Riverbank Hunter’.
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Adam Pankhurst is a reporter for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter Embed a tweet and on Tic.
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