Bones of contention
Can protein in dinosaur bones survive for millions of years? Rachel Brazil explores the evidence
In 2007, Science published protein sequences from a 68-million-year-old dinosaur femur fragment. The bone came from a Tyrannosaurus rex – its name, ‘king of the tyrant lizards’, recognising its one-time status as the largest carnivorous dinosaurs known. The paper, from palaeontologist Mary Schweitzer at North Carolina State University in the US and colleagues reported that amino acid sequences from dinosaur collagen found in the bone closely matched those found in modern chickens. The evolutionary link between birds and dinosaurs was not unexpected, but the results were still met with deep scepticism – could proteins really survive this long?