Study reports chemical evidence of red blood cells in 115-million-year-old dinosaur bone
Researchers claim to have identified microscopic structures and heme molecules resembling red blood cells in a Cretaceous dinosaur fossil, though some experts remain skeptical.
Scientists have reported the detection of microscopic structures and chemical signatures of heme, a component of hemoglobin, in a 115-million-year-old dinosaur bone from Brazil. The bone, part of a hind-limb of the theropod Aratasaurus museunacionali, was examined using advanced imaging and chemical analyses, revealing oval-shaped microstructures within vascular canals that resemble red blood cells and traces of manganese oxides that may have aided preservation.
Lead author Kliti Grice, an organic geochemist at Curtin University, said the findings demonstrate that original biological material can survive in exceptional fossil sites and that the methods could be applied to other specimens to explore hidden biological information. She noted that further work is needed to determine whether such preservation is rare or has been overlooked in museum collections.
Not all paleontologists accept the interpretation. Mary Schweitzer of North Carolina State University questioned whether the structures match known red blood cell dimensions and highlighted that the manganese oxide identified is not present in living blood cells. Timothy Cleland of the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum Conservation Institute emphasized that the presence of heme does not imply DNA preservation and called for broader testing across additional fossils and locations.
The research team plans to extend the analysis to fossils from different species and environments to assess the prevalence of molecular preservation, which could eventually inform studies of dinosaur physiology and evolutionary biology.