London, Apr 13 (ANI): Had dinosaurs been alive, it could have been possible that the next time you ordered for a chicken leg, the restaurant would have served you a T. Rex steak.
Don't be surprised, for scientists have now discovered that dinosaur proteins are very similar to chicken proteins.
For their study, the team of US researchers compared organic molecules preserved in a 68 million year old T. Rex fossil and compared them to those of living animals.
The dinosaur fossil included a skull, both thighbones and both tibiae (shin bones) unearthed from rocks in the Hell Creek Formation of eastern Montana, US.
Scientists found the protein sequence pattern to be structurally similar to chicken collagen, and there were also similarities with frog and newt protein. Researchers say the proteins are original organic material from the dinosaur's soft tissue, and not contamination.
Mass sepctrometry, a sensitive technique that identifies chemicals by their atomic mass, also revealed that the protein in the bones were similar to chicken proteins.
The T. Rex material contained sequences of amino acids - protein building blocks - typical of collagen, said co-author Mary Schweitzer, from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, US.
Dr. Schweitzer says the findings are important as they shed new light on the evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds. The findings are also consistent with the idea that birds trace a direct evolutionary line to dinosaurs, she adds.
This apart, the technique could also help reveal evolutionary relationships between other living and extinct organisms, the researchers write in the journal Science.
According to Dr. Schweitzer, the discovery of protein in dinosaur bones is a big surprise - as organic material was not thought to survive this long.
As per the theories of fossilisation, original organic material is not thought to survive as long as this; and finding them in a fossil this old is a genuine surprise, and these are by far the oldest such molecules extracted from fossils.
"It has always been assumed that preservation of [dinosaur bones] does not extend to the cellular and molecular level. The pathways of cellular decay are well known for modern organisms. And extrapolations predict that all organics are going to be gone completely in 100,000 years, maximum," said Dr. Schweitzer.
"The similarity to chickens was exactly what one would expect given the relationship between modern birds and dinosaurs," she added. (ANI)