Triassic fish for lunch? Chinese fossil reveals oldest preserved reptile stomach

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A Chinese-led team analyzed a 240 million-year-old fossil featuring the oldest preserved stomach and soft tissues of reptiles, providing new insight into the early marine colonization by archosaurs during the Early Triassic period.

A Chinese-led team has analysed a 240 million-year-old fossil with the oldest known preserved stomach, liver and intestinal soft tissue in reptiles. The complete skeleton fossil has highly specialised body features that indicate it lived in the water, suggesting the marine colonisation of archosaurs was earlier and more extensive than previously believed. The fossil of the Austronaga minuta from the Early Triassic period also offers a “unique opportunity” to study how Triassic reptiles made the...