Name: Dinosaur Parasites
Uploaded: undefined
Duration: undefined

Gross Science

NOVA Science Trust Logo

Even the mighty T. rex was covered in creepy, crawly parasites. Discover what plagued the dinosaurs in this episode of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/grossscienceshow">Gross Science</a>.

Even the mighty T. rex was covered in creepy, crawly parasites.

Dinosaur Parasites

Even the mighty T. rex was covered in creepy, crawly parasites.

Nature

Dinosaur ParasitesPublished August 17, 2017Dinosaurs were the kings (and queens) of the Mesozoic. But even they were chock full of creepy, crawly parasites.I’m Anna and this is Gross Science.Fossilized dino poop is a veritable wellspring of information. These ancient turds, called coprolites, can give us insights into what the animal ate and what was living in its guts. As it turns out, even dinosaurs suffered from intestinal parasites. One dinosaur coprolite found contained four different types of organisms.Inside the fossilized feces were cysts and three types of eggs. The cysts looked similar to those of amoebas that live in animal guts today. And scientists found one type of flatworm egg and two types of roundworm eggs.Malaria—which is often thought of as a human parasite—may also have plagued the dinosaurs. Researchers discovered an ancient strain of a malaria-like parasite, frozen in time in the digestive system of a biting fly that was trapped in amber 100 million years ago.Very Jurassic Park.These parasites look like species that commonly infect birds and reptiles today. Plus, the fly looked like one that could have fed on dinosaurs.Not even the mighty T. rex could escape parasitic infection. Often times, the mandibles of tyrannosaurids possess smooth-edged lesions, which many paleontologists thought to be bite wounds from fighting with other dinosaurs. But in 2009, scientists proposed a different cause for the lesions—the remnants of ancient parasites.Trichomonosis is a parasitic infection that afflicts modern day birds. In fact, pigeons are commonly infected with trichomonosis, which can cause the birds to have flesh eating ulcers in their upper digestive tract, including in the mouth and esophagus. It can actually bore holes in the bird’s jaw. And when scientists compared these holes to the ones on fossilized T. rex jaws, they looks pretty similar, leading the scientists to hypothesis that whatever caused the holes in the dino jaws was related to the parasite that causes trichomonosis in birds.Anyway, almost every living creature has at least one parasitic species that can infect it, and dinosaurs were no exception. Just goes to show that life, uh, finds a way.Ew.

United States

Northern Mariana Islands

Puerto Rico

American Samoa

Guam

U.S. Virgin Islands

U.S. Minor Outlying Islands

US & Territories

Colossal explosions shake a remote corner of the Siberian tundra, leaving behind massive craters. In Alaska, a huge lake erupts with bubbles of inflammable gas. Scientists are discovering that these mystifying phenomena add up to a ticking time bomb, as long-frozen permafrost melts and releases vast amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. What are the implications of these dramatic developments in the Arctic? Scientists and local communities alike are struggling to grasp the scale of the methane threat and what it means for our climate future. (Premiered February 2, 2022)

In the Arctic, enormous releases of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, threaten the climate.

Arctic Sinkholes

The top half of Jupiter in blue and green against a night sky

A composite image of Jupiter using images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Jupiter ERS Team; image processing by Judy Schmidt.

Explore the cosmos, delve into ancient history, and follow an extreme rescue with NOVA’s most-watched documentaries released in 2022.

NOVA’s most popular science documentaries of 2022

Four bright orange loops brand off of a dark blue blob

A transmission electron micrograph of HIV-1 virus particles (orange) replicating from the plasma membrane of an infected H9 T cell. Credit: NIAID, Flickr

Scientists have cured a handful of people of HIV by piggybacking on treatments they received for blood cancer. But does that bring a widespread cure any closer?

Transcript

Credits

Sources

Support Provided By