Bacteria in a Dinosaur Bone Reignite a Heated Debate
Around 76 million years ago, a massive herd of the horned dinosaur Centrosaurus died in what is now Alberta, Canada. While they were still alive, these creatures, like all other animals, would have had trillions of microbes living inside their bodies and on their skin. And even now, long after their demise, their remains still harbor life.
Within pieces of fossilized bone from a newly uncovered Centrosaurus, scientists led by Evan Saitta from the Field Museum have found a thriving community of unusual bacteria. These aren’t ancient microbes, but modern ones that infiltrated the fossils and survived on the water and minerals inside them. “The bones provide a refuge,” Saitta says. They are porous, and so “have space for the microbes to proliferate. They’re full of phosphate and iron. They can wick up moisture.”
When animals die, waves of microbes consume their corpses. Scientists” changes over the after an animal perishes. But Saitta’s work suggests that microbes continue to colonize cadavers long after their flesh has decayed, after their bones have turned to stone, and after they’ve been buried several miles deep for millions of years.
