Even dinosaurs had cancer
Cancers already occurred during the Jurassic period, more than 200 million years ago. That is what Belgian researchers from the Free University of Brussels (VUB) and the University of Liège (ULiège) were able to demonstrate in an extensive study.
The Belgian researchers examined fossil bones of sauropods or long-necked dinosaurs from Thailand and Niger and found peculiar bone excrescences. Of these, at least one could be pinpointed as an aggressive bone cancer, from which the dinosaur also died.
"In an Isanosaurus from the Early Jurassic of Thailand (about 200 million years old), the animal produced some kind of microscopic bone needles on the surface of its humerus at the end of its life. The animal died shortly afterwards. Such needles are typically associated with malignant tumours, and thus fit the picture of a deadly bone cancer," Benjamin Jentgen, a PhD student at the VUB and ULiège, told Bruzz.
The researchers were thus able to show that cancers are an ancient phenomenon in nature. The study showed that sauropods, the largest land animals that once roamed the Earth's surface, were also prone to bone diseases such as malignant cancers.
(FVDV for Tagtik/Source: Bruzz/Illustration picture: Pixabay)
