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Let's talk fossilized crocodilian skin


NatalieP

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I've been trying to do some research about actual gator scutes not ostoderms that we call scutes. I know that Dino skin can be found so can croc also? Would love to hear about this subject and see some great photos if possible too please! 

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Far from an expert here but while Osteoderms are bone and easily collected Scutes are made of Keratin which is rarely preserved.  So I have not seen any at least those from the late cretaceous not to say they don't exist.  A lot of Dinosaur skin you see on the commercial market are just impressions and but we do have numerous examples of real mummified skin.    Will be curious to see what others say.

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December 2019.

ABSTRACT

The preservation potential of biomolecules within vertebrate integument through deep time has recently been subject to much research and controversy. In particular, the preservation potential of proteins, such as collagen and keratin, is currently debated. Here, we examine claims from a recent study (Schweitzer et al., 2018, PLoS One), which concludes that feather keratin has a high preservation potential. We argue that this work provides insufficient evidence for protein preservation due to issues of methodology and data interpretation. Additionally, we contrast their approach and claims to those of other recently published studies in relation to the question of keratin protein preservation in fossils. We worry that most of the perceived evidence for Mesozoic polypeptide survival stems from repeated replication of methods prone to false detection, rather than triangulation by validating these claims with alternative methods that provide independent lines of evidence. When alternative explanations exist for the evidence cited as support for dinosaur proteins far exceeding their predicted preservation limits, it is most parsimonious to reject the more extreme taphonomic hypotheses. The evidence is instead more consistent with a mode of preservation in which keratinous structures do not fossilize organically as polypeptides, but rather as largely pigment and/or calcium phosphate remnants, which were originally held within the keratin matrix that is now lost. Unsupported taphonomic models (e.g., keratin polypeptide preservation) have the potential to influence our interpretation of fossil data, potentially resulting in erroneous paleobiological or evolutionary conclusions, as illustrated in another recent paper (Pan et al., 2019, PNAS) that we also discuss.

Evan T. Saitta. Integrative Research Center, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois, USA. evansaitta@gmail.com
Jakob Vinther. School of Earth Sciences and School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK. jakob.vinther@bristol.ac.uk

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http://pristis.wix.com/the-demijohn-page

 

What seest thou else

In the dark backward and abysm of time?

---Shakespeare, The Tempest

 

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