New discovery await diligent fossilist . For proof , look no further than Jakob Vinther , a scientist at the University of Bristol in England , who recentlyunveiledwhat might be the field ’s first model of a non - avian dinosaur butt .
The enquiry , which waspublishedin the journalCurrent Biology , offers a glimpse inside the butt of apsittacosaurus , a dog - sized dino whose fossilized remains bring off to retain some semblance of shape — enough for Vinther to digitally rebuild its , uh , butthole .
Examining the stiff of thePsittacosaurusat Senckenberg Natural History Museum in Frankfurt , Germany , Vinther realise he and confrere coulddevelopa role model for the animal ’s cloaca , a multipurpose cavity that facilitates urination , bowel apparent motion , and coition . ( Modern razz , crocodiles , and turtles are among those who sport cloacas . The word is Latin for “ gutter . ” ) Vinther worked with co - authors like paleoartistRobert Nichollsand University of Massachusetts Amherst biologist Diane A. Kelly on the reconstruction . For mention , Kelly looked to her own ingathering of animate being cigarette , as well as the alive backsides of alive chickens . After 120 million years , the dinosaur ’s rearward end was once again seeable .
What secrets lurk within ? For one , the cloaca appear to have a distinct color , which might have attracted potential mates . It also contains scent gland , presumably for the same intention , and a distich of lip besiege a dorsal lobe in the shape of a bean , an arrangement that might have resembled a drawn drape . by nature , Vinther also found a little chip offossilized shit .
Beyond that , Vinther could n’t say . If this sewer is like a crocodile ’s , it might have obnubilate a penis or clitoris , but no trace of any genitals was present . Patricia Brennan , an animal privates expert at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts , toldThe New York Timesthat it ’s potential the lobe just expel monolithic amounts of spermatozoan in a personal manner similar to some bird mintage .
A dinosaur phallus remain elusive . Only circumscribed conclusions can be draw from a individual sample , but the sewer is even so another step in see the challenging anatomy of dinosaur butts .
[ h / tPopular Science ]
