An international research team has identified fossilized red blood cells and hemoglobin-related biomolecules in 115-million-year-old dinosaur bones. The study, led by Curtin University in Australia, also describes the detection of collagen amino acids and was published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The fossilized limb bones belong to the theropod species Aratasaurus museunacionali and were found in northeastern Brazil. Numerous red blood cells were identified inside them, preserved within vascular pores.
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Previous studies had reported the possible presence of structures resembling red blood cells in fossils. According to the researchers, the new study is the first to chemically confirm the presence of hemoglobin-derived molecules inside these cells. Hem, which was detected in the samples, is the component of hemoglobin that binds and transports oxygen.
How the cells were preserved
The researchers believe that the preservation of the cells is due to the fact that the dinosaur was buried quickly after its death, in an environment with low oxygen levels and rich in microorganisms.
“The discovery of intact molecules derived from blood inside 115-million-year-old red blood cells is astonishing. This is truly a landmark discovery,” said the study’s lead author, Klaiti Greis, founding director of the Western Australian Center for Organic and Isotopic Geochemistry at Curtin University.
As she explained, the findings expand the fossil blood record and offer a “molecular window” into the physiology of extinct animals, as well as the environment in which they lived.
The head of the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Curtin University, Martin van Kranendonk, noted that the research challenges our understanding of the preservation of molecular structures over time and under particularly harsh conditions. The findings, he added, could also have implications for astrobiology, as well as for the search for ancient life in the universe.
Source: ertnews.gr
