Did you just read Dinosaur and Dandruff together? Yes, that슬롯사이트™s right. The oldest known case of dandruff has been identified in a small feathered dinosaur that roamed the Earth about 125-million-years-ago. As reported in The Guardian, palaeontologists found tiny flakes of fossilised skin on a crow-sized Microraptor, a meat-eating dinosaur that had wings on all four of its limbs.

In a new study published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers detected flakes of fossilised skin on the bones of three-feathered dinosaurs 슬롯사이트“ Beipiasaurus, Sinornithosaurus and the Microraptor. 슬롯사이트œThis is the only fossil dandruff known,슬롯사이트 said lead study author Maria McNamara, a paleobiologist at University College Cork in Ireland. 슬롯사이트œUntil now, we슬롯사이트™ve had no evidence for how dinosaurs shed their skin.슬롯사이트 The material shows that rather than losing their outer layer in one piece, or in large sheets 슬롯사이트“ as is common with modern reptiles 슬롯사이트“ the feathered dinosaurs adapted to shed their skin in tiny flakes.

For the study, McNamara and her colleagues borrowed four fossils from the Institute for Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleonthropology in Beijing, China. The team scanned soft-tissue samples under an electron microscope, so the fossils could be compared in detail to similar flakes taken from modern birds. The researchers wrote that this fossilised dandruff was almost identical to that of modern birds and indicated dinosaurs clearly shed their skin in flakes.

슬롯사이트œEven though they are in the early stages of feather evolution, they have already adapted their skin to this more modern structure,슬롯사이트 McNamara said. The fossilised remains of the animals were recovered in North Eastern China. At 2 meters long, beipiosaurus and sinornithosaurus grew to more than twice the size of the microraptor.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 28, 2018 10:36 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).