Ultraviolet light reveals skin patterns on 125-million-year-old Pyrenees crocodile fossil
A crocodile fossil found in the Spanish Pyrenees over a century ago has yielded skin and color patterns from about 125 million years ago, visible only under ultraviolet light. The specimen, cataloged as MGB-512, is about 50 centimeters long and belongs to Montsecosuchus depereti. Paleontologists Oscar Castillo and Jesús Serrano spotted the tissue while building a Catalan museum database. Under UV light, it stood out from the rock, according to the study in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.
The find gives new evidence on ancient crocodile coloration and on how the respiratory system evolved.
Source: An extraordinary fossil from the Pyrenees reveals what the skin and color pattern of crocodiles from 125 million years ago were like (icp.cat).
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