Scientists discover highly well-preserved dinosaur with oldest belly button ever known

‘Exceptionally-preserved’ fossil has allowed scientists to document scales, tail bristles, and first-ever dinosaur cloaca

Paleontologists have discovered the oldest belly button known to science in the fossil remains of a parrot-beaked dinosaur found in China.

In the research, scientists from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) analysed the 125-million-year-old fossil of a 2m-long, two-legged herbivorous dinosaur unearthed in China 20 years ago.

The study, published earlier this month in the journal BMC Biology, used an advanced laser-imaging technique to analyse a fossilised skin specimen of the Psittacosaurus mongoliensis dinosaur that lived during the Cretaceous period about 145 million to 66 million years ago.