Marrow recovered from 10-million-year old frog at UCD

29 May 2009 11:22 AM

A UCD scientist is leading a remarkable project that has recovered bone marrow in the remains of a 10-million-year-old fossiled frog. The findings were reported in the university's magazine, UCD Today and attracted a lot of media attention around the world.

The reason for all the attention is that this is the first time that bone marrow has been discovered in the fossil record, said UCD palaeobiologist Dr Maria McNamarawhose team made the discovery. Dr McNamara is a post doctoral researcher in UCD's School of Geological Sciences.

"We saw a bit of red inside the bone but thought that it would be too good to be true for it to be bone marrow," she told the university's magazine, UCD Today. "We brought it back to Ireland for analysis and we really couldn't believe it when we found out that it was."

The fossilised frog was found in Teruel, in north-eastern Spain. The region once had several deep lakes, which has led to many ancient species of frog and salamander being uncovered.

Normally only bone and other hard tissue would survive that length of time. But the fossils of seven frogs and one salamander have yielded soft tissue marrow.

The marrow could contain DNA from the 10-million-year-old species. The discovery will allow researchers to build up a much clearer picture of how extinct species lived.