An international team led by Curtin University reports chemical evidence of ancient blood in 115-million-year-old dinosaur bones, identifying mineralized red blood cells containing preserved heme molecules in a theropod from northeastern Brazil.
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Blood chemistry has survived inside dinosaur bones for 115 million years, according to an international research team led by Curtin University. Researchers identified mineralized red blood cells containing preserved heme molecules in the limb bones of Aratasaurus museunacionali, a theropod recovered in northeastern Brazil. The study provides what the team described as the first chemical confirmation of hemoglobin-derived molecules inside fossilized red blood cells.
Previous research has reported structures resembling red blood cells in fossils, but this study went further by identifying heme, the oxygen-binding component of hemoglobin, within cells preserved in the bone's vascular canals. The samples also contained amino acids associated with collagen. Professor Kliti Grice, the study's lead author, said the detection of intact heme-derived molecules in 115-million-year-old red blood cells was astonishing and a landmark discovery.
The researchers found the red blood cells had been mineralized with hausmannite, a mineral that acted as a natural time capsule. The team believes the process followed rapid burial shortly after the dinosaur's death, and that a low-oxygen environment rich in microbes may have created the conditions needed. Grice said the findings challenge longstanding assumptions that certain biomolecules such as hemoglobin cannot survive deep time.
Professor Martin Van Kranendonk, head of Curtin's School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said the work redefines how molecular structures can survive over long periods or in hostile conditions, with possible implications for astrobiology and searches for evidence of ancient life beyond Earth. He said the study exemplifies how coordinated efforts across institutions, continents and scientific disciplines can unlock extraordinary insights into ancient life.
The collaboration included institutions in Australia, Japan, Brazil and the United States. Researchers from the Brazilian National Museum, Regional University of Cariri, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, and Johns Hopkins University participated. Grice's 2021 Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship funded the work, and the study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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