A dinosaur ‘belly button’? This 130 million-year-old fossil reveals that—and more
The specimen—officially known as SMF R 4970—left China in the 1990s under legally dubious circumstances, amid a rash of fossil smuggling out of the country’s Liaoning Province. After the fossil traveled through the U.S. and Europe in the hands of a German dealer, the museum bought it in 2001 to keep it available to science (repatriation efforts at the time fell apart). Ever since, the dinosaur has yielded one stunning discovery after another.
Dinosaur-skin fossils aren’t unheard of: North American hadrosaur “mummies,” for instance, preserve areas of scales. But this Psittacosaurus has possibly the most skin preserved from a single non-avian dinosaur—and even contains vestiges of its melanin pigmentation. “It’s been such a treasure trove,” says Jakob Vinther, a paleontologist at the U.K.’s University of Bristol who has closely studied the dinosaur.
It also keeps yielding surprises. In 2021, a team led by Vinther found that this Psittacosaurus is the only known non-avian dinosaur with a preserved cloaca, an all-purpose orifice for defecation, urination, and sex. Last year, researchers doing a deep-dive study of the dinosaur’s scales announced that they had spotted its “belly button”: a wondrous snapshot of the ancient creature’s time in ovo.
Related Post
Breaking News: Intact Dinosaur Unearthed in the Amazon Jungle—A Groundbreaking Discovery
Stunning Discovery: 6,000-Year-Old Danish Burial Reveals Heart-Wrenching Mother and Baby Bond
Grisly Discovery: Female ‘Vampire’ Remains Found Pinioned with a Sickle Across Her Throat to Repel the Supernatural
Unearthing King Tut’s Footwear: The Hidden Stories of His 3,300-Year-Old Sandals, from Hidden Disabilities to Symbolic Enemies
Revealing the Shocking Secrets of Rome’s 5,500-Year-Old Giant Tomb: What the Ancient Enigma Exposes
Mysterious Find: 3-Fingered Mummified Hand Discovered in a Hidden Tunnel Beneath the Peruvian Desert—What Secrets Lie Within?