Monday 2 November 2020

Soft Tissue In Dinosaurs Show How They Mated


Current Biology (2016) Psittacosaurus sp. SMF R 4970


Joel Kontinen


When  soft tissue was first noticed in a dinosaur, many evolutionists refused to believe it. Now, soft tissue is becoming an issue many scientists approve of. How about the cloaca, that is a single orifice used for excretion, urination, mating and laying eggs.

”A fossil dinosaur originally discovered in northwestern China is so exquisitely preserved that the shape of its cloaca – the opening used for excretion and mating – is visible for the first time.

The evidence has actually been in plain sight. The psittacosaurus – a kind of early ceratopsian related to Triceratops that lived around   120 million years ago – has been on public display at the Senckenberg Museum of Natural History in Frankfurt, Germany, for over a decade and several scientific papers have already been written about its primitive feathers and colouring.”

Source:

Le Page Michael. 2020. Dinosaur fossil with preserved genital orifice hints how they mated. New Scientist 22 October.