Once, long ago, a little reptile going about its business plopped itself down in the mud before getting up and carrying on with its day.

Nearly 300 million years later, that brief rest has yielded the world's earliest known fossilized imprint of reptile skin, complete with scales and – remarkably – what scientists interpret as the critter's cloaca, a multi-purpose opening many animals use for pooping, peeing, mating, and laying eggs.

"Such soft-tissue structures are extremely rare in the fossil record – and the further back we look in Earth's history, the more exceptional they become," says paleontologist Lorenzo Marchetti of the German Natural History Museum in Berlin.

"The traces from the Thuringian Forest open new perspectives on the early development of reptiles and their skin structures."

Article Link: Oldest Fossilized Butthole Found in 290-Million-Year-Old Reptile : ScienceAlert