Blood Cells Found in Dinosaur Fossils

Blood cells have been discovered in dinosaur fossils. This is a big and scary find.

The relics of red blood cells and tissues have been found among dinosaur fossils dating back to 75 million years ago. The chemical analysis revealed that the red blood cells resembled that of the emu. What? Jurrasic World can become reality?

A journal published the exciting finding recently. A dino claw was examined and what appeared to be red blood cells were seen under the microscope. In other dino fossils the remnants of tissues such as collagen and tendons, skin and cartilage was found too. 

Although this is not the first time such a discovery has been made, it is unique in that red blood cells have been found in dino fossils. In the past the samples that came to the fore were preserved items.

But this time some of the red blood cells are in pretty good condition. And the surprising thing is that these stable blood cells were found in samples that were even older as evident from the carbon dating methods.

Spectrometry was used to gain an insight into the chemical and physical makeup of the soft tissues. Even relics of the original amino acids were found somewhere in the samples. Amino acids as everyone knows are the building blocks of life. 

The resemblance of the cells with that of the modern day emu is especially of key significance. It shows that evolution is a constant process. Phylogeny and ontogeny are linked in self-replicating mirror situations.

It is well known that the smaller the red blood cells, the faster the metabolism of the creature. And warm blooded animals have a high metabolism while cold blooded ones have lower metabolic rates. The big question is whether dinosaurs were hot blooded like birds or cold blooded like reptiles. 

The question is a legitimate one since it would lend us clues as to whether dinosaurs were sluggish or fast. Maybe the dinosaurs are not that different from the mammals of today. They were probably just a little different and not radically or diametrically opposed to the warm blooded creatures found today.

The relatedness of the dinosaurs to some of the animal life found today is quite a remarkable discovery. It could lead to an increase in the basic knowledge that anthropologists and archaeologists not to mention paleontologists have about the distant past of the earth’s life forms. 

The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.