Ancient ticks found full of dinosaur blood

By Mike Wehner, BGR

Nature Communications

 Researchers working with ancient amber thought to be nearly 100 million years old have discovered something that sounds like the beginning of a new chapter in the Jurassic Park franchise: a host of ticks which appear to have feasted on dinosaur blood. The ticks, which have been identified as two distinct species, may have offered hope of dinosaur reincarnation if we were living in a sci-fi novel, but unfortunately, things are a bit different here in reality.

The ticks, one of which the scientists note is swollen over eight times its normal size due to a belly heavy with dinosaur blood, have been trapped in their amber prisons for far too long to yield anything resembling usable DNA. However, the discovery is still significant for a number of other reasons, including what was found preserved alongside the ticks themselves… read more:

Original article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-01550-z