Dinosaur DNA Fully Intact Possibly Discovered by Scientists in 125 Million-Year-Old Fossil

A team of scientists from the Chinese Academy of Scientists have published a paper detailing the apparent discovery of dinosaur DNA in a 125 million-year-old fossil found in what is now Lianoing in northeast China. The paper on Communications Biology says the DNA was found within some cartilage extracted from a Caudipteryx sample. The dinosaur, which hailed from the early Cretaceous period, was about the size of a modern day peacock. According to the paper (via IGN), the team extracted a piece of cartilage from the right femur of the fossil and then treated the cells with chemicals that are used to stain and light up different tissue structures. In this way, they determined that they could see a number of elements that suggest the presence of intact DNA.

Not all of the scientists’ colleagues are satisfied with that conclusion yet. Chemistry World says other scientists are urging caution, suggesting that the staining technique is too imprecise to be making excited announcements and promising major advancements.

“We are obviously interested in fossilized cell nuclei, because this is where most of the DNA should be if DNA was preserved,” Alida Bailleul, corresponding author of the study, said in a press release. “So, we have good preliminary data, very exciting data, but we are just starting to understand cellular biochemistry in very old fossils. At this point, we need to work more.”

Bailleul characterizes the current discovery, and others like it, as a starting point, suggesting that dinosaur cloning is unlikely ever to be a reality, even if scientists were able to get to the point where they had a complete DNA sequence. Finding dino DNA isn’t an entirley new thing — last year, another group from the same Chinese academy found organic material in 75 million-year-old fossils, which also seemingly included DNA. Lest anyone be skeptical of that group having the good fortune to do it twice, the Imperial College London found blood cells first, discovering them in a fossilized dinosaur claw a few years before the Chinese team ever made a big discovery.

Of course, cloning is far more complex than most people understand it to be, so as soon as you hear there’s a blood cell or intact DNA, many of the headlines are going to lean into the more fantastical elements, acting like the world of Jurassic Park is closer than it really is. But don’t worry: it’ll be a long time, if ever, before anybody’s getting eaten on a toilet at a prehistoric theme park.