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The Oldest Breath: A 300-Million-Year-Old Mummy Reveals the Origins of How Amniotes Breathe
The fossil preserves cartilage, skin and proteins, giving researchers rare evidence that rib-assisted breathing evolved early in amniotes.
- On Wednesday, University of Toronto vertebrate paleontology professor Robert Reisz published a study in Nature describing a 289-million-year-old mummified Captorhinus fossil discovered in an Oklahoma cave system.
- Preserved by oil seeps and mineral-rich groundwater in a Richards Spur cave, the mummified specimen retained original cartilage, skin, and proteins—conditions extremely rare in the fossil record.
- The fossil reveals costal aspiration breathing, where chest muscles expand and contract ribs to draw air into lungs—the same mechanism used by modern reptiles, birds, and mammals today.
- Brown University biologist Elizabeth Brainerd, unconnected to the study, said the fossil confirms "the rib cage and shoulder girdle work together for breathing in modern lizards" and ancient reptiles alike.
- The adaptation likely drove amniote diversification during the Paleozoic era, said Harvard University Ph.D. candidate Ethan Mooney, enabling these animals to become land-dominant species and shaping vertebrate evolution.
16 Articles
16 Articles
289-Million-Year-Old Mummified Reptile Found in Oklahoma: Everything We Know About the Discovery
Your lungs are working overtime right now — probably without you even thinking about it. But the system powering every single breath you take? It’s nearly 290 million years old. A jaw-dropping fossil discovery in an unlikely place just revealed exactly how that system first evolved, and honestly, the details are wild. Two specimens of an early reptile called Captorhinus — roughly the size of a bearded dragon, for anyone who’s been on reptile Tik…
A mummified reptile found in a cave in Oklahoma, United States, provided new clues about the origin of the respiratory system in vertebrates. The specimen, with preserved soft tissues, allowed rebuilding for the first time how the first amniotes breathed, a group that includes reptiles, birds and mammals.The animal belongs to the genus Captorhinus, a small lizard that lived between 289 and 286 million years. Its remains preserved bones, skin and…
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