Scientists Detect Heme B in 115-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Blood Cells

3 articles · Updated · Sci.News · Nov 2

Heme B and its altered derivative, 3,8-diethyl heme B, were detected inside red-blood-cell-like structures in hind-limb bones of Aratasaurus museunacionali from northeastern Brazil.
SEM imaging and spectroscopic analyses found the heme-related signatures in the same ellipsoidal structures—about 23 by 20 micrometers—inside vascular canals, reinforcing that they are mineralized remnants of red blood cells.
Manganese oxide mineralization, especially the mineral hausmannite, likely shielded the cellular structures and organic material from degradation over 115 million years.
The PNAS study says the find does not show intact blood or full hemoglobin proteins survived, but it challenges assumptions about biomolecules enduring deep time and could open new molecular clues to dinosaur physiology.