Paleontologists Find Possible Dinosaur DNA

A report of preserved fragments of nuclei and chromatin in a fossilized femur of a 125-million-year-old Caudipteryx dinosaur elicits skepticism.

Chloe Tenn

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A team has extracted what could be DNA molecules from a 125-million-year-old fossil dinosaur, according to a study published last month (September 24) in Communications Biology. But other experts have voiced caution or outright skepticism about the findings.

Gizmodo reports the oldest sequenced DNA belongs to a million-year-old woolly mammoth. DNA is a relatively fragile molecule, and dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago, so the idea of sequencing DNA from these ancient creatures has so far remained science fiction.

In the new study, paleontologists from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature extracted and decalcified femur cartilage from a 125-million-year-old Caudipteryx dinosaur, which lived in the Jehol Biota—in what is now the coastal province of Liaoning in northeast China—during the Early Cretaceous period.

According to a news release from the ...

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Meet the Author

Chloe Tenn
Chloe Tenn is a graduate of North Carolina State University, where she studied neurobiology, English, and forensic science. Fascinated by the intersection of science and society, she has written for organizations such as NC Sea Grant and the Smithsonian. Chloe also works as a freelancer with AZoNetwork, where she ghostwrites content for biotechnology, pharmaceutical, food, energy, and environmental companies. She recently completed her MSc Science Communication from the University of Manchester, where she researched how online communication impacts disease stigma. You can check out more of her work here.
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