[Rockhounds] Oldest Fossilized Skin Discovered, Clocks in at 300 Million Years Old

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

Researchers believe they’ve found the oldest known fossilized skin, hidden
away in a limestone cave system in Oklahoma. The skin sample dates to the
early Permian Period, between 289 million years ago and 286 million years
ago.

The skin belonged to an ancient reptile and is epidermis—the outer layer of
skin in amniotes, a group that includes terrestrial reptiles, mammals, and
birds. A study describing the skin as well as several other fossils found
in the cave system is published
<http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.12.008> today in Current Biology.

According to the research team, the recently discovered skin—smaller than a
fingernail—is the first-known skin-cast fossil from the Paleozoic Era. The
other fossils included skin compressions, skin bits from the ancient
reptile *Captorhinus aguti*, and several scales of anamniotes—animals that
reproduce in water. The bands of skin from the fossilized *C. aguti* came
from just behind the animal’s head; the team was not able to associate all
the amniote skin with specific ancient creatures.

https://gizmodo.com/oldest-fossil-skin-300-million-years-reptile-epidermis-1851159030