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Scientists Find Fossilized Dinosaur Blood Cells
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In Short: Researchers discovered what appear to be fossilized red blood cells and heme biomolecules in the bones of a 115-million-year-old dinosaur in Brazil.
An international research team has identified what appear to be fossilized red blood cells and heme biomolecules in the bones of a dinosaur that lived approximately 115 million years ago in Brazil.
The dinosaur, named Aratasaurus museunacionali, was estimated to be about four years old, weighing 34 kilograms and measuring 3.1 meters from head to tail.
The scientists found that the bone was almost 80 percent heme, and the cells appeared to be about 15 microns in size.
This finding challenges previous scientific assumptions about the preservation of soft tissues in fossils.
The research, published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, opens new avenues for molecular-level paleontology, allowing scientists to investigate the evolution of blood, metabolism, and even activity levels in ancient animals.
Mary Schweitzer’s controversial 2005 discovery of red blood cells and pliable blood vessels in a T. Rex has been repeatedly documented, and this new discovery adds to the evidence of soft tissue preservation.
The dinosaur’s blood cells and heme biomolecules were found in limb bones, suggesting that under the right conditions, blood-derived molecules can survive for more than 110 million years.
What this adds
The discovery of blood cells and heme biomolecules in dinosaur fossils challenges previous scientific assumptions and opens new avenues for molecular-level paleontology.
The research team suggests that the preservation of these soft tissues is due to the specific conditions in which the dinosaur was fossilized, rather than any inherent durability of the tissues themselves.
What's confirmed
- Published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, mineralised red blood cells and intact heme biomolecules were discovered in limb bones of a 115-million-year-old theropod dinosaur known as Aratasaurus museunacionali, recovered in northeastern Brazil.
What's still developing
- Scientists are testing whether they can fossilise human blood in microbial mats from Shark Bay, Western Australia.
- "Still, that is quite remarkable considering the age of the fossil."
- This suggestion came from scientists on June 9, 2015 in Nature Communications as they unveiled the Cretaceous cells and collagen they recently found.
- For example, still-soft, flexible material was recovered after demineralization of well-preserved bones from the Late Cretaceous dinosaur Tyrannosaurus 13, whereas proteinaceous material was found to be preserved in another dinosaur, Brachylophosaurus 14.
- Density-dependent colour SEM 21 obtained from the surface of minute pieces broken off from samples with tweezers revealed numerous low-density structures suggestive of soft tissue in sample NHMUK (Natural History Museum, London, UK) R12562, an ungual claw of an indeterminate theropod dinosaur ( Fig. 1 and Supplementary Figs 1,3,4 ).
- A nondescript 115-million-year-old fragment of leg bone has yielded spectacularly preserved red blood cells, which may be the earliest ever found in dinosaurs.
- The cells she found were abundant: in a single slide, just a fifth of a millimetre wide, there were 20 blood cells.
- The fossils suggest a dinosaur measuring over 10 feet long and weighing about 75 pounds, but given its young age, A.
- A fractured rib from Scotty, the largest Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever discovered, is giving researchers a rare look at dinosaur biology from 66 million years ago.
- "Scotty's rib contains a vast network of mineralized blood vessels that has never before been observed in a fossil." Soft tissues such as blood vessels usually disappear during decomposition long before fossilization is complete.
- UCLA scientists have perfected a method to measure a dinosaur’s temperature from its teeth and found that T. rex was a relatable 97 degrees Fahrenheit — almost the same as humans.
- While the presence of fossils in Alaska suggested that this prehistoric ancestor of birds was already on the evolutionary path from cold-blooded reptile to warm-blooded avian, there wasn’t a way to take T.