Soft tissue preservation in fossils does not seem to depend upon the species, age or burial environment of the fossils in question, according to new research from North Carolina State University. The work provides further evidence for the preservation of soft tissues and structures through deep time and could also serve as a methodological framework for other researchers interested in pursuing these questions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to test several hypotheses with this work \u2013 the first one being whether we would be able to retrieve these tissues from different dinosaur species,\u201d says Mary Schweitzer, professor of biology emeritus at North Carolina State University. \u201cThe other questions followed from that one \u2013 do the age or the depositional environment make a difference in our ability to retrieve soft tissue from these specimens?\u201d<\/p>\n
The research team began by demineralizing bone fragments from six fossils \u2013 four Tyrannosaurus rex<\/em> specimens, one Brachylophosaurus canadensis<\/em> and one ceratopsian. The specimens ranged in age from around 65 to 80 million years old.<\/p>\n \u201cSome of the enduring questions around this work are how to distinguish actual tissues, like blood vessels, from bacteria, fungus or potential contaminants,\u201d Schweitzer says. \u201cOver the years we\u2019ve developed a suite of analytical tools that are best suited to helping us answer these questions.\u201d<\/p>\n The researchers began by imaging \u2013 using transmitted light microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and nano computed tomography to obtain extremely high-resolution images of the vessels.<\/p>\n Next, they used several analytical techniques to characterize these tissues at different levels, including immunofluorescence, immunogold labeling, lactophenol cotton blue staining and time-of-flight ion mass spectrometry to identify what the molecules were.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like starting with a big funnel and working your way down, eliminating and identifying everything we see so that we can distinguish original structures and molecules from bacterial or fungal growth,\u201d Schweitzer says. \u201cAnd since we don\u2019t have a living control to compare the results to, we use ostriches, which are dinosaurs\u2019 closest living relative, to get an idea of how these tissues should respond to our analyses if they are endogenous.\u201d<\/p>\n The researchers were able to retrieve vessels from all six specimens, though they varied in quality. They also found evidence of peptides and proteins that were not microbial in origin, suggesting that they could be original preserved molecules.<\/p>\n Overall, they found that the depositional environment \u2013 where the fossils fossilized, in other words \u2013 did not seem to have much impact on their ability to retrieve the vessels, although the sample from one T. rex<\/em> found in mudstone was not as pristine as the others, which were retrieved from both mudstone and sandstone.<\/p>\n \u201cIt seems as though the preservation of vessels through deep time is not that uncommon,\u201d Schweitzer says. \u201cBut the work still must be done on a case-by-case basis, because so far there isn\u2019t any evidence that a particular preservation environment is best. So don\u2019t rule out a fossil because of depositional environment or age. Those factors don\u2019t seem to matter.<\/p>\n \u201cWe also hope that our techniques can be used to establish a methodological framework for this research going forward, so that we can give better answers to the ongoing question of what may preserve through deep time.\u201d<\/p>\n The research appears in Scientific Reports<\/a><\/em> and was supported by Lynn and Susan Orr, Vance and Gayle Mullis (Mullis Analytics), and the Swedish Research Council. Adam Hartstone-Rose, professor of biology at NC State, along with former lab manager Wenxia Zheng and former post-doc Edwin Dickinson, are NC State co-authors. Peter Sj\u00f6vall of RISE Institutes of Sweden and Johan Lindgren of Lund University, Sweden, also co-authored the work.<\/p>\n -peake-<\/p>\n Note to editors:<\/strong> An abstract follows.<\/p>\n \u201cTaphonomic variation in vascular remains from Mesozoic non-avian dinosaurs\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n DOI<\/strong>: 10.1038\/s41598-025-85497-y<\/a><\/p>\n Authors<\/em>: M. Schweitzer, W. Zheng, E. Dickinson, A. Hartstone-Rose, North Carolina State University; J. Scannella, Museum of the Rockies and Montana State University; P. Sj\u00f6vall, RISE Institutes of Sweden; J. Lindgren, Lund University, Sweden Abstract:<\/strong> This post was originally published<\/a> in NC State News.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false,"raw":" Soft tissue preservation in fossils does not seem to depend upon the species, age or burial environment of the fossils in question, according to new research from North Carolina State University. The work provides further evidence for the preservation of soft tissues and structures through deep time and could also serve as a methodological framework for other researchers interested in pursuing these questions.<\/p>\n\n \u201cWe wanted to test several hypotheses with this work \u2013 the first one being whether we would be able to retrieve these tissues from different dinosaur species,\u201d says Mary Schweitzer, professor of biology emeritus at North Carolina State University. \u201cThe other questions followed from that one \u2013 do the age or the depositional environment make a difference in our ability to retrieve soft tissue from these specimens?\u201d<\/p>\n\n The research team began by demineralizing bone fragments from six fossils \u2013 four Tyrannosaurus rex<\/em> specimens, one Brachylophosaurus canadensis<\/em> and one ceratopsian. The specimens ranged in age from around 65 to 80 million years old.<\/p>\n\n \u201cSome of the enduring questions around this work are how to distinguish actual tissues, like blood vessels, from bacteria, fungus or potential contaminants,\u201d Schweitzer says. \u201cOver the years we\u2019ve developed a suite of analytical tools that are best suited to helping us answer these questions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n The researchers began by imaging \u2013 using transmitted light microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and nano computed tomography to obtain extremely high-resolution images of the vessels.<\/p>\n\n Next, they used several analytical techniques to characterize these tissues at different levels, including immunofluorescence, immunogold labeling, lactophenol cotton blue staining and time-of-flight ion mass spectrometry to identify what the molecules were.<\/p>\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s like starting with a big funnel and working your way down, eliminating and identifying everything we see so that we can distinguish original structures and molecules from bacterial or fungal growth,\u201d Schweitzer says. \u201cAnd since we don\u2019t have a living control to compare the results to, we use ostriches, which are dinosaurs\u2019 closest living relative, to get an idea of how these tissues should respond to our analyses if they are endogenous.\u201d<\/p>\n\n The researchers were able to retrieve vessels from all six specimens, though they varied in quality. They also found evidence of peptides and proteins that were not microbial in origin, suggesting that they could be original preserved molecules.<\/p>\n\n Overall, they found that the depositional environment \u2013 where the fossils fossilized, in other words \u2013 did not seem to have much impact on their ability to retrieve the vessels, although the sample from one T. rex<\/em> found in mudstone was not as pristine as the others, which were retrieved from both mudstone and sandstone.<\/p>\n\n \u201cIt seems as though the preservation of vessels through deep time is not that uncommon,\u201d Schweitzer says. \u201cBut the work still must be done on a case-by-case basis, because so far there isn\u2019t any evidence that a particular preservation environment is best. So don\u2019t rule out a fossil because of depositional environment or age. Those factors don\u2019t seem to matter.<\/p>\n\n \u201cWe also hope that our techniques can be used to establish a methodological framework for this research going forward, so that we can give better answers to the ongoing question of what may preserve through deep time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n The research appears in Scientific Reports<\/a><\/em> and was supported by Lynn and Susan Orr, Vance and Gayle Mullis (Mullis Analytics), and the Swedish Research Council. Adam Hartstone-Rose, professor of biology at NC State, along with former lab manager Wenxia Zheng and former post-doc Edwin Dickinson, are NC State co-authors. Peter Sj\u00f6vall of RISE Institutes of Sweden and Johan Lindgren of Lund University, Sweden, also co-authored the work.<\/p>\n\n -peake-<\/p>\n\n Note to editors:<\/strong> An abstract follows.<\/p>\n\n \u201cTaphonomic variation in vascular remains from Mesozoic non-avian dinosaurs\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n DOI<\/strong>: 10.1038\/s41598-025-85497-y<\/a><\/p>\n\n
Published<\/em>: Feb. 4, 2025 in Scientific Reports<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n
The identity and source of flexible, semi-transparent, vascular-like components recovered from non-avian dinosaur bone are debated, because: (1) such preservation is not predicted by degradation models; (2) taphonomic mechanisms for this type of preservation are not well defined; and (3) although support for molecular endogeneity has been demonstrated in select specimens, comparable data are lacking on a broader scale. Here, we use a suite of micromorphological and molecular techniques to examine vessel-like material recovered from the skeletal remains of six non-avian dinosaurs, representing different taxa, depositional environments and geological ages, and we compare the data obtained from our analyses against vessels liberated from extant ostrich bone. The results of this in-depth, multi-faceted study present strong support for endogeneity of the fossil-derived vessels, although we also detect evidence of invasive microorganisms.<\/p>\n