However, not everyone agrees with the research team's conclusions, with some experts saying the shape doesn't match those of reptilian red blood cells.
The new findings come from limb bones of a roughly 10-foot-long (3 meters) dinosaur called Aratasaurus museunacionali. While previous research has detected blood in dinosaur fossils, this is the first study to use chemical processes to identify heme-based signatures in dinosaur bones.
The team was not originally looking for traces of dinosaur blood, Grice said. Her research was driven by a broader question: How much of an ancient organism's original biology can survive fossilization?
Using microscopic and chemical analysis on the theropod's limb bones, the researchers found numerous microscopic structures within vascular canals, channels that once carried blood vessels through the bone. Their shape, size and location were consistent with red blood cells, the team said.
The team's chemical analyses detected preserved heme-related compounds associated with these structures, providing more chemical evidence to support the idea that the finding could be traces of dinosaur blood, as heme is the iron-containing, ring-shaped molecule that forms a key part of the molecule hemoglobin in red blood cells.
A time capsule
An illustration of a microbial mat covering A. museunacionali's bones after it died. (Image credit: Victor O. Leshyk)
"The red-blood-cell-like structures were mineralised with hausmannite, a manganese oxide mineral (Mn₃O₄)," Grice said. "We think early mineralisation helped stabilise or replicate microscopic biological structures before they were completely destroyed, while aspects of the associated chemistry also survived in altered form."
Not everyone is convinced
While blood has been found in dinosaur fossils before, not everyone agrees that these latest findings are truly red blood cells.
For one, the structures do not convincingly match the expected appearance of red blood cells in nonmammalian animals, Schweitzer said. Unlike mammalian red blood cells, which lose their nuclei during development, those of birds and reptiles retain their nuclei. This typically produces a characteristic nuclear bulge in the shape of the cell.
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Although this study did not use the same methods, Schweitzer welcomed the broad direction of the research.
"I appreciate these authors bringing technological innovations to the study of dinosaur fossils," she said. "I am excited to see that this team and others are moving forward with a molecular approach to ancient fossil remains."
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