It retained large patches of beautifully preserved skin, down to its cellular structure, providing new insight into skin evolution in feathered dinosaurs. The fossil points to "zoned development" in the skin of these dinosaurs, researchers said, with Psittacosaurus and probably other feathered dinosaurs possessing scaly, reptile-like skin on body regions without feathers, with soft, bird-like skin on areas with feathers. The fossil skin looked really exquisite, covered by tiny, rounded scales of about one millimeter wide," Yang said. The fossil did not have skin from the dinosaur's feathered regions, but the researchers think these areas had bird-like skin. The dinosaur's scaly skin closely resembled the skin of today's reptiles.
