Dinosaur blood found in 115-million-year-old Brazilian fossil
Scientists find chemical signs of blood in a 115-million-year-old dinosaur fossil found in Ceará. Understand how the material was preserved.
TL;DR
- Scientists found biological indicators of blood in a 115-million-year-old fossil of the Aratasaurus museunacionali dinosaur in Ceará, Brazil.
- Microscopic structures resembling red blood cells and chemical traces of heme B and collagen-linked amino acids were identified.
- Rapid burial in an oxygen-poor environment and the presence of hausmannite minerals contributed to the preservation of these fragile structures.
- While chemical signs of blood were found, genetic material (DNA) was not preserved, precluding genetic reconstruction or cloning.
- The discovery challenges previous assumptions about the longevity of biomolecules, suggesting chemical traces of blood can endure for hundreds of millions of years.