Researchers examining fossilized leg bones from an Aratasaurus, a small meat-eating dinosaur that lived in what is now northeastern Brazil 115 million years ago, claim to have identified structures resembling red blood cells along with chemical evidence of heme, the compound responsible for oxygen transport in blood.
The analysis, led by Prof Kliti Grice at Curtin University in Western Australia, employed electron microscopy to observe small round structures in channels where blood vessels once ran. Chemical testing confirmed the presence of heme and its breakdown products, as well as amino acid components of collagen, a connective tissue protein. The dinosaur remains, discovered in a mine in 2008, are housed at the National Museum of Brazil. According to the research team’s hypothesis, a manganese compound called hausmannite may have stabilized the biological materials before fossilization occurred. The findings were published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The discovery has prompted scientific debate regarding the interpretation of the findings. Prof Mary Schweitzer at North Carolina State University, who has previously identified blood vessel remnants and soft tissues in dinosaur fossils, expressed skepticism about whether the observed structures are genuinely red blood cells. She noted that dinosaur red blood cells should display a nuclear bulge creating a dome-like appearance on both sides, whereas the structures identified by Grice’s team appear concave. However, Schweitzer acknowledged the significance of detecting heme and collagen amino acids in the fossil material.
The research challenges the conventional paleontological assumption that endogenous organic molecules disappear within approximately one million years. Grice emphasized that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and cautioned against overinterpreting the findings, stating the work does not suggest that large biological molecules like proteins or DNA survive in ancient fossils. She suggested that museum collections worldwide may contain additional molecular information awaiting investigation with advanced analytical techniques.
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