Scientists have discovered molecular traces of blood in a dinosaur bone dating back 115 million years. The find was made in the remains of Aratasaurus museunacionali – a small predatory dinosaur whose bone was found in northeastern Brazil.
The international team, led by Professor Kliti Grice of Curtin University, examined a bone from the animal’s hind limb. In microscopic vascular channels, they discovered mineralized structures resembling red blood cells. Chemical analyses showed the presence of heme – a molecule that is part of hemoglobin and is involved in transporting oxygen.
“We did not discover dinosaur DNA, but we recovered something remarkable: a molecular imprint of blood from an animal that lived 115 million years ago,” Grice said. According to her, the finding shows that fossils can preserve a “chemical memory” of a living organism.
How the traces were preserved
The researchers link the unusual preservation to a series of conditions following the animal’s death. The carcass is believed to have been rapidly buried in an environment with little oxygen and high microbial activity. Subsequently, the mineral hausmannite helped stabilize the cellular structures and the molecules associated with them.
The bone came from the Romualdo Formation – an area in Brazil known for its exceptionally well-preserved fossils. According to the researchers, it was precisely the combination of rapid burial, limited oxygen exposure and mineralization that reduced the degradation of the organic traces.
The finding does not mean “Jurassic Park”
Aratasaurus museunacionali was a theropod – a group of bipedal predatory dinosaurs that also includes later giants such as the tyrannosaurus. The known remains consist mainly of a hind limb. The animal was about 3.1 meters long and weighed approximately 34 kilograms.
Although the discovery provides new information about the physiology of the extinct species, it does not bring scientists any closer to cloning dinosaurs. That would require preserved genetic information, and none was found in the samples examined.
The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The authors believe the methods could also be applied to other museum fossils in the search for molecular traces of blood, metabolism and other characteristics of extinct animals.