An international research team led by Dr. Lorenzo Marchetti from the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin has described the oldest known impressions of reptile skin from the Thuringian Forest in central Germany. Particularly remarkable is the possible preservation of a cloacal opening within the skin imprint. The fossils, dated to approximately 298 to 299 million years ago from the early Permian period, document detailed scale patterns of the stem group of modern reptiles for the first time. The results were published today in the journal Current Biology.