T. Rex “soft tissue” find shows fossils aren’t just bone

<body leftmargin="0" bgcolor="#000060" text="#FFFFFF" link="#FFFF00" vlink="#FF9900"> <b> <p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="5">T. Rex “soft tissue” find shows fossils aren’t just bone</font></p> </b> <p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="1">Posted March 24 2005<br> Courtesy American Association for the Advancement of Science<br> and World Science Staff<br> </font> <b> <font size="2" face="Arial"><br> A recently discovered <i> Tyrannosaurus rex</i> fossil appears to contain elastic soft tissues, blood vessels and cells, researchers report in tomorrow’s issue of the research journal <i>Science</i>.<br> <br> Tissues other than bone can be preserved in the fossil record, but it’s usually difficult to determine their original form and composition in fossils more than a few million years old, the researchers said.<br> <br> These findings show that soft tissues can be clearly preserved for much longer, since this T. rex specimen, known as MOR 1125, is roughly 70 million years old. <br> <br> North Carolina State University’s Mary Higby Schweitzer and colleagues wrote in the study that they noticed unusual tissue fragments lining the marrow cavity of the MOR 1125 femur. <br> <br> When they dissolved the mineral deposits in the tissues, the authors were left with a flexible, stretchy material threaded with what looked like blood vessels. The treatment also released some thin, transparent soft tissue vessels that floated freely in the solution. <br> <br> These vessels resemble vessels from modern-day ostrich bone, the authors report. Both the dinosaur and ostrich vessels also contained small, reddish brown dots that might be nuclei of the “endothelial” cells that line blood vessels. <br> <br> Certain portions of the T. rex bone also contained fiber-like structures that looked virtually identical to bone cells called “osteocytes” seen among collagen fibers in the ostrich bone, the researchers added. <br> <br> “The exquisite preservation of this tissue, which does not challenge the timing of dinosaur evolution, may open up avenues for studying dinosaur physiology and perhaps some aspects of their biochemistry,” said an announcement from the journal, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  </font></b> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><font face="Arial" size="2">This will be true “especially if researchers can identify soft tissues in other fossils as well,” it added.</font></b> </p> </body>