Using the Canadian Light Source at the University of Saskatchewan, they found a vast network of blood vessels preserved around a fracture in a rib fossil by Scott the Tyrannosaurus Rex. “We were not looking for blood vessels, it was an accident,” said Mauricio Barbi, a professor of physics at the University of Regina.
Sask. research teams make a rare find inside the Scotty T. rex fossil
Using the Canadian Light Source, a research team from Saskatchewan says it has discovered a preserved network of blood vessels inside a rib fossil from Scott T. Rex. 3:05 Barbi is part of a team that includes U of R physics Masters student Jerit Mitchell and Ryan McKellar, curator of invertebrate paleontology at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum. This image of blood vessel structures was created while Mitchell was creating a 3D model of a fossilized bone by Scotty the T. rex in the synchronous light source in Canada. (Canadian light source)
The preserved structure was found while Mitchell was creating an intricate, three-dimensional model of the 67-million-year-old fossil using synchronous scan data that uses bright light to see inside objects at the molecular level.
“Actually, I had no idea what it was,” Mitchell said. “As a physicist myself, I was really new to this project and new to paleontology. bone.
“We need to find out what we can do next, what kind of analysis we can do to look deeper,” he said.
Mitchell stressed that his team is skeptical about theories related to their findings, as it is too early to formally state and confirm the findings from the project, which has been underway for more than a year.
See how the Canadian light source synchronizer works
The synchronizer uses bright light to help researchers look inside objects at a level of detail that is not possible using a traditional high-power X-ray microscope. 2:51
Ottawa paleontologist Jordan Mallon did not participate in the study, but agrees that the finding is “very good.” Researcher at the Canadian Museum of Nature says technological advances have really helped paleontology evolve.
We need to know what we can do next, what kind of analysis we can do to look deeper. – Jerit Mitchell
“For centuries, it has been believed that there is virtually no trace of biological tissue in a fossil – it should not be,” he said. “And yet, as we begin to put these things under the microscope and look at them with new techniques and look at them in depth, it turns out that the fossilization process is not as simple – or perhaps not as fast – as we thought it would be.”
While things like preserved blood vessels and cells are a really rare find, Mallon said it turns out to be there.
Scotty remains a miracle
Discovered in 1991 in the Frenchman River Valley of Saskatchewan, near Eastend, Sask., Scotty holds the distinction of being the largest T.rex skeleton ever found in the world.
A full-scale replica of Scott, about 15 feet[15 m]high, is on display in the Saskatchewan Royal Museum. The museum also takes care of the real fossils.
Mitchell says they believe their findings are related to how Scotty healed his wounds.
“One of our hypotheses is that this fracture may be the cause of the appearance of this vascular structure,” he said. “So we do not see this unbridled vascular structure in another part of the bone. We only see it around the point where this fracture is.”
Mallon says it is remarkable to find out how the dinosaurs were cured, especially in the case of the Tyrannosaurus and his relatives, because life was not easy for them.
“Their facial bones often have marks, which tells us that probably in sexual maturity these things bit each other’s face, maybe for an area, maybe in sexual conflicts,” he said.
“Well, it would be interesting to know something about how they dealt with this way of life.”
Using this fossilized rib bone by Scotty the T. rex and the synchrotron in the Canadian light source, Saskatchewan researchers believe they have discovered a preserved network of blood vessels. (Kirk Fraser / CBC)
The team plans to extend its findings from Scotty’s side to other fossils, especially those with similar fractures. Barbi says he contacted the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alta and submitted a proposal for the group through the Canadian light source.
“To test this hypothesis, we want to look at other bones with … similar pathological features and see if we can find something that is also related,” he said. “Then, if we have limited similar features to fossils and structures, we can expand and compare other species of dinosaurs.”
The team is also investigating how these blood vessels were preserved, including the chemicals involved.
Mallon says the possible addition of this find to the fossil record is interesting.
“The blood vessels we find in animals today are usually found back in the fossil record,” he said, adding that scientists can now trace modern body designs hundreds of millions of years ago because of this kind of research.
A similar discovery in Montana
A similar discovery was made in the United States in 2005. It was then that Mary Higby Schweitzer, a researcher at North Carolina State University, recovered soft tissue, including blood vessels and cells, from a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil found in Montana.
Her findings, by authors Jennifer Wittmeyer and John R. Horner, were published in National Library of Medicine in 2006. Schweitzer dismantled the disorganized part of the fossil and left it with soft, elastic tissue.
Although the findings are similar, they are clearly different, Barbi said.
“He still found flexible, soft structures in a small area, and we seem to have that structure – metallic in our case – spread over a larger area,” he said, adding that the combination of the two findings meant they could fill a gap. in the study of evolution.
This is not the first major Barbi invention to use the synchronous.
The dinosaur skin found in Alberta is very similar to that of a modern crocodile (Department of Photography, University of Regina)
In 2012, he was on a team in the Alberta Badlands that discovered preserved pieces of dinosaur skin from a 72-million-year-old chandrosa dinosaur.
Using the Canadian Light Source, the team was able to compare the skin of a dinosaur with modern animals, which found that the Late Cretaceous hydrosaurus had skin that closely resembled the skin of a modern crocodile.
“The important thing is to maintain the structures,” Barbie said. “I could see the nucleus of the cell.”
