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Researchers Find Red Blood Cells in 115-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Bone
· Confirmed
In Short: Researchers studying a 115 million-year-old dinosaur bone say they've found the strongest evidence yet of red blood cells in a fossil.
Dinosaur 🦖 Blood Found in 115 Million Year Old Fossil?. USAMYSTICA
Researchers studying a 115 million-year-old dinosaur bone say they've found the strongest evidence yet of red blood cells in a fossil. The discovery, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, uses a combination of microscopic imaging and chemical analyses to identify structures resembling red blood cells and chemical evidence of heme, a molecule in hemoglobin.
The fossil is a partial hind limb of Aratasaurus museunacionali, a theropod dinosaur that lived during the Early Cretaceous period. The bone was unearthed in 2008 at the Mina Pedra Branca site in northeastern Brazil within the Romualdo Formation, known for its exceptionally preserved fossils.
The team used scanning electron microscopy to capture images of tiny ellipsoid structures, about 20 micrometers in diameter, that may be fossilized red blood cells. They also found chemical evidence of heme within the structures themselves, marking the first time heme has been detected in situ in a dinosaur fossil.
However, not all experts are convinced that the microscopic structures are truly red blood cells. Past research has described red blood cell-like structures and possible remnants of blood chemistry in dinosaur fossils, but this study brings together multiple lines of evidence, including the structures’ location, appearance, mineral composition, and associated chemical signals.
What this adds
This report adds new details about the chemical evidence of heme and the microscopic structures resembling red blood cells, as well as expert opinions on the implications of the discovery. The BACKGROUND notes that red blood cells are the most common type of blood cell and the vertebrate's principal means of delivering oxygen to the body tissues.
Background
Researchers studying a 115 million-year-old dinosaur bone have found what they believe to be the strongest evidence yet of red blood cells in a fossil.
Red blood cells (RBCs), referred to as erythrocytes in academia and medical publishing, also known as red cells, erythroid cells, and rarely haematids, are the most common type of blood cell and the vertebrate's principal means of delivering oxygen to the body tissues—via blood flow through the circulatory system.
What's confirmed
- The new study, published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, used a combination of new microscopic imaging and chemical analyses to find not only microscopic structures resembling red blood cells preserved within the dinosaur bone, but also chemical evidence of heme — a molecule in hemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen.
What's still developing
- Traces of prehistoric blood could reveal unprecedented clues about dinosaur biology, but they’ve been notoriously difficult to confirm.
- A few previous studies, dating back to the late 1990s, have reported structures resembling red blood cells in dinosaur and other reptile fossils, but researchers have fiercely debated their legitimacy.
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- While previous studies have reported possible red blood cell structures in fossils, this study is the first to chemically prove the presence of haemoglobin-derived molecules inside the cells.
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