Possible dinosaur DNA discovered in 125-million-year-old fossil

By Bárbara Pinho2021-10-26T08:30:00

An image showing an animal that seem to be in-between a velociraptor and a chicken walking on two legs through tall grass. It has a yellow beak-like mouth, a red skinny head and a body covered in blue and green feathers.

Source: © Shutterstock

But that doesn’t mean we can clone extinct species Jurassic Park-style

A team of researchers found what seems to be DNA in a 125-million-year-old dinosaur fossil – though how the fragile biomolecules survived fossilisation remains a mystery.

Alida Bailleul, a palaeontologist from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and her colleagues found the biomolecules in a portion of cartilage from a Caudipteryx specimen. This peacock-sized theropod dinosaur inhabited what is now Northeast China and is one of the oldest species of dinosaurs with feathers discovered so far.