A piece of 50 million-year-old preserved lizard skin reveals how ancient animals looked

Using new infrared light techniques , scientist have at last been capable to analyse the chemic composition of a small-arm of lizard skin , bear on for millions of years in dry tilt . So what did these reptiles seem like in pre - human time ?

In these overstate piece of music of the lizard tegument , you may actually see jail cell and a homespun texture to the skin surface . Yes , that ’s proper – you are looking at cells that are 50 million year old – much , much older than even the most distant human ancestor . University of Manchester geochemist Roy Wogelius , who published about this research in the Royal Society B this calendar week , recount the BBC :

In fact , the chemical substance remains – in terms of the organic compound – resemble very tight resemble what we get when we look at modern gecko pelt . That means that some of the organic component have been keep up over that period of time .

Hisenseqd6

Some of the touch metal chemistry is also original to the organism , and that give us hope in terms of understanding some bio - metallic composite , in particular sympathize the coloration and pigmentation of the skin .

So this creature would have looked sort of like a gecko . Does that mean it would have been brightly colored , the way so many gecko are ? We ’ll line up out more as the inquiry continues .

Read the full scientific newspaper publisher viaRoyal Society B

Dellinspiron2in1