The skin samples all possess nonoverlapping scales, though the scale sizes, distributions and abundances vary. Captorinhus, an early amniote (illustrated), walked on solid ground during the Permian period, which stretched from around 299 million to 252 million years ago. Petroleum and tar permeated the remains, sealing them off from decaying conditions while also staining them black. Corpses were buried in fine sediments, which excluded oxygen and slowed decay, and were exposed to groundwater rich in iron, an element that helps preserve tissues. There, a special concoction of cave conditions contributed to the fossils’ superb preservation. It fits “into a broader story of how the first animals left the water and went onto land.”įossil collectors Bill and Julie May found the cast, along with exquisitely preserved skin impressions, at an Oklahoma quarry in an ancient limestone cave system known as Richards Spur. “This is definitively the oldest piece of mummified skin,” says paleontologist Ethan Mooney of the University of Toronto Mississauga.
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