Evidence of Red Blood Cells Seen in Dinosaur Fossil From Brazil
Researchers chemically identified heme and mineralized red blood-cell traces in a juvenile dinosaur fossil, challenging assumptions about biomolecule survival.
- On Monday, researchers at Curtin University published findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences confirming molecular traces of blood, including mineralized red blood cells and heme, inside a 115-million-year-old Aratasaurus fossil.
- The Aratasaurus museunacionali specimen, discovered in a Brazilian mine in 2008, likely benefited from rapid burial in a low-oxygen microbial mat, where hausmannite mineralization helped protect delicate biological structures from degradation.
- Lead author Kliti Grice of Curtin University noted the study does not document dinosaur DNA, but team analysis identified heme B using high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry as a molecular fingerprint of blood.
- Grice explained the findings encourage scientists to re-examine thousands of fossils in museum collections, stating, "We'll be able to completely ask new questions of these fossils that have been in museums for decades."
- While the discovery offers a direct molecular window into dinosaur physiology, Darren Griffin, a Professor of Genetics at the University of Kent, emphasized that cloning remains impossible without recoverable ancient genetic material.
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From the Ceará Sertão to the highlight of one of the most prestigious science publications in the world, the aratosaur gave new blood to dinosaurs, despite its 115 million years. An international team of scientists discovered in its fossil the most important evidence that dinosaurs had blood as that of birds and mammals, and not as that of reptiles. The Northeast dinosaur opens a new way to investigate the prehistory.
For the first time ever, several million years old blood has been found. The discovery was made at a dinosaur and similar researchers discovered that a new "molecular window" into the world of dinosaurs has opened.
Science Writing, 2 Nov (EFE).- An international team of researchers has discovered for the first time unequivocal evidence of fossilized red blood cells and collagen amino acids in the bones of the extremities of a 115 million-year-old dinosaur found in a deposit in the Araripe basin in Brazil. The finding, recorded in the journal ‘The Proceedings’ of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, transforms “the understanding of fossil …
Incredible discovery of fossilized blood cells inside a dinosaur leg bone
A dinosaur that breathed its last breath in the middle of the Cretaceous may have left behind more than a mould of its bones, with a study reporting the astonishing discovery of mineralized blood cells inside the theropod’s 115-million-year-old remains.Continue ReadingCategory: Biology, ScienceTags: Dinosaurs, Fossils, Red blood cells, Bones
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