How preserved blood vessels found in Saskatchewan’s most famous T. rex are opening doors for researchers

WATCH: Preserved blood vessel structures found Scotty the T. Rex’s fossil are opening the doors for researchers. Donovan Maess explains.

Preserved blood vessel structures found in Saskatchewan’s most famous Tyrannosaurus rex fossil are allowing researchers to learn how extinct animals recovered from injuries.

The preserved blood vessel structures were discovered in a rib bone from Scotty the famous T. rex, who was found in Saskatchewan in the 1990s.

Jerrit L. Mitchell, a PhD student in the University of Regina’s (U of R) Department of Physics and the study’s lead author, discovered the vessel structures while finishing his undergraduate honours thesis research.

Mitchell joined the ongoing research project in 2019 when Scotty’s rib was scanned at the Canadian Light Source at the University of Saskatchewan for the first time.

“I remember showing my supervisors, Dr. Barbi and Dr. McKellar, a strange structure inside a scan of the rib that I originally didn’t give much thought to. They were quick to point out that what I discovered could possibly be preserved blood vessels, which has since led to a much more expansive research project,” Mitchell said.

“Everyone grows up into dinosaurs. So it’s kind of a dream come true in a way to be doing this kind of research,” he added.

Synchrotron X-rays produced by the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan gave researchers the opportunity to create a detailed 3D model of both the bone and soft tissue structures inside it without damaging the 66-million-year-old fossil.

“Then, using chemical analysis, the researchers determined what elements and molecules make up the vessel structures, allowing them to hypothesize how the structures were preserved over millions of years.”

The X-rays of the fossil’s rib also showed a healed fracture that could have been sustained in a fight, according to researchers.

“Since we found these blood vessel structures, we’re now able to make some inferences on the healing potential of T. rex’s,” Mitchell explained.

“Preserved blood vessel structures, like we have found in Scotty’s rib bone, appear linked to areas where the bone was healing. This is because during the healing process, those areas had increased blood flow to them,” physics professor Mauricio Barbi said in the release.

“This work also provides a new way to compare how injuries healed in extinct animals, like dinosaurs,” Barbi added.

CLS senior scientist Mohsen Shakouri believes the team would have not been able to make the discovery without using the synchrotron light.

“We are looking at the darkest time - 60 million years ago - and you’re looking at the inside of the dinosaur bone,” he told CTV News. “I’m not saying that was the only source, but they wouldn’t be able to find this as much as they found without using a synchrotron.”

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The findings were recently published in Scientific Reports, an open-access journal that publishes original research from across natural sciences, psychology, medicine and engineering.

The U of R says the multidisciplinary study grew to involve researchers from the school’s departments of physics, biology, and earth sciences, along with the Royal Saskatchewan Museum (RSM).

RSM curator of paleontology and adjunct professor at the U of R Ryan McKellar said the discovery proves how fossils like Scotty are much more than museum exhibits.

“They continue to advance science in ways we never imagined when they were first unearthed,” he said. “Part of our role at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum is to ensure these specimens remain available for research, so it’s exciting to see new technology and collaborations between the RSM, the University of Regina, and the Canadian Light Source revealing discoveries, while keeping the fossils intact for future generations,” McKellar said.

Mitchell and team hopes to expand their research to examine other T. rex to see if there are similarities or trends amongst the species’ tissue structure - or even other types of dinosaurs.

“We want to look at some other different bones that have feature pathology or a feature like a fracture. And then we want to see if we get similar type of results,” he explained.

“Keeping everything all together puts everything in context so we can better understand the relationship of how how this bone was preserved over 66 million years,” Mitchell added.