Comprehensive coverage

The Tyrannosaurus rex is closer to a chicken than an alligator

A molecular examination confirmed what the scientists believed a long time ago based on the shape of the bones - T. rex, chickens and ostriches shared a common ancestor

Fossilized remains of TREX in Berlin
Fossilized remains of TREX in Berlin

Many years ago researchers in the life sciences determined that birds evolved from dinosaurs. They came to this conclusion mainly based on the similarity between the bird skeletons and the dinosaur skeletons, but now this assertion received additional support, from the molecular side.

An examination of collagen proteins extracted from a fossilized femur of a 68-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus Rex confirmed that the T-Rex, chickens, and ostriches share a common ancestor, and to a lesser extent, alligators as well. The bone was discovered in 2003 by paleontologist John Horner of the Museum of the Rockies.

"These results are consistent with predictions made based on the anatomy of the skeleton, thus providing the first molecular proof of the evolutionary relationships of a non-bird dinosaur," says Chris Organ, one of the authors of the paper and a researcher at Harvard University. "Even though we only had six proteins - a total of 89 amino acids - from the T-Rex, we were able to maintain these relationships."

"Examinations of the peptide sequence in the T-rex fossil bones confirmed that the new methods of molecular systematics agree with the traditional taxonomic classification, based on morphology or shape," says Paul Filmer, Director of the Department of Earth Sciences at the National Science Institute who funded the study.

The second author of the paper, Marie Schweitzer of the University of North Carolina and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, discovered in 2005 that the soft tissue was able to be preserved inside the bone of the T-Rex. The current study is based on a previous study published in Science about a year ago. The previous study was conducted by a group led by John Azara and Lewis Cantley, from the Beth Israel Deacons Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, which for the first time succeeded in extracting and sequencing small pieces of the collagen protein from the T-Rex.

Azara became involved in collagen protein analysis due to his expertise in mass spectrometry methods, capable of sequencing minute amounts of proteins extracted from human tumors.

Through the use of genetic sequencing, scientists were able to establish the relationship between the T-Rex dinosaur and birds, and between mastodons and modern-day elephants
Through the use of genetic sequencing, scientists were able to establish the relationship between the T-Rex dinosaur and birds, and between mastodons and modern-day elephants

In the current study Organ, Azara and their colleagues compared collagen proteins from 21 species living today. Their goal was to find T-Rex's place in the family tree of the animal kingdom, by using molecular evidence.

"Most of the collagen sequence was obtained from protein and genome databases, but we also had to use mass spectrometry to sequence several important organisms, such as the modern alligator and ostrich," says Azara.

"We determined that T-rex was, in fact, closer to birds - to a chicken and an ostrich - than any other organism we tested," he says. "We also showed that it is more closely related to birds than to modern-day reptiles, such as alligators and green anole lizards."

Although scientists have long suspected that birds are more closely related to dinosaurs than some reptiles, this hypothesis has been based for years mainly on the morphological similarity between the skeletons of birds and dinosaurs.

Another conclusion from the study was reached through the analysis of collagen protein sequences 160,000 to 600,000 years old, extracted from mastadon bone (ancient elephant). The analysis proved that there is a close phylogenetic relationship between the extinct mastodons and modern elephants.

For information on the website of the National Science Foundation in the USA

Comments

  1. One might think, the fact that some of the dinosaurs were closer to birds than to lizards was already discovered before the 90s!

  2. In my opinion, it makes quite a bit of sense that the Tyrrhex, chickens and ostriches have a common ancestor. After all, all three evolved from the most ancient creature

  3. Oh, and I wanted to add one more thing:
    It's strange that only Yehuda and I addressed the racist reaction, I hope it's not because we only care about it and it pissed us off and didn't make us laugh.

  4. 1) I strongly agree with Sabdarmish Yehuda, this racism is very unfunny and really annoying.

    2) This news was already published before this only with an emphasis on the fact that they managed to extract proteins from the fossil and not with an emphasis on the closeness between the T. Rex for poultry.

    3) It's really amazing that they managed to extract proteins from a fossil, and it also proved that the dinosaurs were very close to the birds.

  5. It is amazing that they managed to extract proteins from fossils that are tens of millions of years old. Although it is still very far from producing the DNA of 'Jurassic Park', but at this rate...

  6. To my father Blizovsky

    Please delete Dr. Ash's vile racist comment
    And then don't forget to delete mine too
    Sabdarmish Yehuda

  7. The picture above is not of a T-Rex
    It's a fossil of Archeopteryx.
    A huge fossil!

Leave a Reply

Email will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismat to prevent spam messages. Click here to learn how your response data is processed.