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– This is the first place for paleontology, and it can cause a giggle. For the first time, scientists were able to describe a dinosaur’s mantle in fine detail. If you do not know that body part, CNET translates: It’s essentially “an everyday butthole”. The study is on Tuesday in Current biology refers to a herbivore of dogs that lived about 120 million years ago Psittacosaurus. Scientists from the University of Bristol write that ‘it has been previously observed that the monastery region has been preserved’, although it has been crushed in this fossil, which was found in China decades ago, but the detailed anatomy of the region has not been properly reconstructed. . This is what they manage, via a 3D model of the orifice, used for defecation, urination, copulation and birth.
The New York Times notes “cloaca” comes from the Latin word for “sewer”, and it is not at all unique to dinosaurs: some modern birds, reptiles, amphibians and a handful of mammals have one, but according to the researchers ‘knowledge the cloaca’ t preserved in any other non-bird dinosaur fossil. So, how does this one fit in with those we know? It is certainly in a class of its own, but much like those seen in crocodiles and crocodiles. While most casing openings or openings appear as slots or holes, those of the Psittacosaurus has “discrete lateral lips, but they converge only in front, giving the cloaca a unique v-shaped anatomy,” according to the study. Those lips were strongly pigmented, indicating that they had a signal function, perhaps a sexual one; it is possible that they also had muscular glands. (Read more discovery stories.)