Chemically confirmed traces of ancient blood found in 115-million-year-old dinosaur bone

Scientists have discovered chemically confirmed traces of ancient blood inside 115-million-year-old dinosaur bones, according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study was led by Curtin University and involved researchers from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, the Brazilian National Museum, the Regional University of Cariri, and Johns Hopkins University.

What the researchers found

The team examined the partial hind limb of Aratasaurus museunacionali, a meat-eating theropod dinosaur from northeastern Brazil. Inside the limb bone, they identified numerous mineralized structures resembling red blood cells in vascular canals, the tiny channels that once held blood vessels.

Chemical analysis revealed preserved heme molecules, which are components of hemoglobin, the protein that allows red blood cells to transport oxygen. The team also reported amino acids associated with collagen, a structural protein found in bones and connective tissues.

"To detect intact heme-derived molecules in 115-million-year-old red blood cells is astonishing: this really is a landmark discovery," Professor Kliti Grice said.

The study provides what the researchers describe as the first definitive chemical confirmation of molecules derived from hemoglobin inside fossilized dinosaur red blood cells. Earlier research had identified structures resembling blood cells in ancient fossils, but scientists had not conclusively demonstrated the presence of these particular molecular remains within them.

How the blood may have survived

The researchers suspect the dinosaur was quickly covered by sediment in an environment with little oxygen and abundant microbial activity, conditions that may have helped preserve biological material that would ordinarily have broken down.

A mineral called hausmannite also appears to have played a role. The team says it helped stabilize the fossilized blood cells and preserve their molecular components over an immense span of geological time, acting as a natural time capsule.

Independent assessment and open questions

Mary Schweitzer, a molecular paleontologist at North Carolina State University who was not involved in the study, told Live Science that she is not convinced the images show remnant red blood cells. Her main objection is shape: the Aratasaurus bodies are concave, with no bulge, and smaller than most red cells of non-mammals, "so morphological similarity is not met," Schweitzer said.

The paper itself acknowledges that heme-producing microbes cannot be completely ruled out. The study is based on one leg from one animal at one site, and the hausmannite time capsule is a proposed pathway, not an experiment anyone has reproduced in the lab.

Why it matters

The findings challenge a longstanding assumption in paleontology that molecules associated with blood, particularly those derived from hemoglobin, could not remain preserved across such enormous periods of time. The researchers say other fossils, including those already in museum collections, may hold molecular information that conventional examinations have overlooked.

The discovery may also be relevant to astrobiology, the field that investigates the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe. If biological molecules or their chemical signatures can persist under the right conditions for more than 100 million years, scientists may need to reconsider where and how they look for evidence of ancient organisms.

The research was supported by a 2021 Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship awarded to Professor Grice. The study, titled "Heme signatures in mineralized red blood cells within vascular canals of a 115-million-year-old dinosaur bone," was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Sources

• sciencedaily.com: Scientists just found dinosaur blood that survived 115 million years | ScienceDaily
• aroundprague.cz: 115-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Bone From Brazil Holds Traces of Blood Molecules
• news.ssbcrack.com: Scientists Discover Remarkably Preserved Dinosaur Blood in 115-Million-Year-Old Bones - SSBCrack News
• martincid.com: Traces of dinosaur blood survived 115 million years inside a leg bone from Brazil – Martin Cid Magazine

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