Not often in this line of work do you find a press release titled “All-purpose dinosaur opening”, but a specially decorated Psittacosaurus specimen has been recognized for the first time as the owner of a multi-faceted butt orifice, did.
The 120-million-year-old specimen was discovered in northwestern China and is on display today at the Senckenberg Museum of Natural History in Frankfurt, Germany. Psittacosaurus was a herbivore related to Triceratops, and it is this specifically preserved specimen that has been the subject of much research on primitive feathers and the coloring of these dinosaurs.
For the first time, however, the specimen has become a subject of interest in opening her genitals. Notably, this soft tissue structure is still visible on the fossil and can be seen as a black fragmented region below the tail. The researchers say that non-avalanche dinosaurs do not have enough sexual dimorphic features to predict their sex, but the structure of the crocodilians, like that of the existing crocodile, gives us some insight into its functioning and even reveals how these dinosaurs came together.
“Actually, they are quite non-descriptive. We’ve found that the vent looks different in different groups of tetrapods, but in most cases, it doesn’t tell you much about the sex of any animal, “said Dr. Diane Kelly, a Vertebrate Gender and Computational Systems Specialist at Amherst University in Massachusetts. The inside of the clock is fragmented and unfortunately, they are not preserved in these fossils. “
Some crocodile mice have olfactory glands that sit close to their genitals, which researchers suspect may be visible in pituitary cortex specimens as two large, pigmented lobes on either side of the clitoris. Pigmentation with melanin is a feature found in the genitals of conventional baboons and breeding salamanders, the two species are known to recruit potential mate to their private parts while displaying and signaling. It is possible, the researchers say, that the club of Psittacosaurus could play a role in following the herbivores of the vegetable in its better days.
“With just one cloak from almost any extinct dinosaur, we can compare it to modern crocodiles and the only living dinosaurs,” Dr. Jakob Vinther from the University of Bristol’s School of Earth Sciences told IFLScience. “It looks a bit like a crocodile’s cloaca, but it’s unique in many ways. We can see that the cloaca was visually striking with the melanin pigment and so it could flash its back edge during the wedding-court. , That is, we see in living crocodiles and dinosaur cloaca body structures may also be suitable for such internal glands.
A cloak is a wonderful thing. Found today in living creatures, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, some fish, and monotremes, these one-size-fits-all genetic structures aid digestion, reproduction, and the passage of urine. Is there a serious oversimplification of the complex excrement requirement of living things or a convenient alternative to managing messier aspects of survival? The jury is still out.
So what’s next for the world’s first discovery? “Since this is the first and only cloaca described, we just have to sit tight until the next fossil appears,” Winger said, “Although it may not be for another 100 years.”
