Dracula ticks in amber tell ancient blood-sucking tale

Feathered dinosaurs were covered in ticks just like modern animals, fossil evidence shows.

Parasites similar to modern ticks have been found inside pieces of amber from Myanmar dating back 99 million years.

One is entangled with a dinosaur feather, another is swollen with blood, and two were in a dinosaur nest, according to BBC.

Scientists say the discovery, which has echoes of Jurassic Park, is the first direct fossil evidence that ticks fed on the blood of dinosaurs.

”Ticks parasitised feathered dinosaurs; now we have direct evidence of it,” co-researcher Dr Ricardo Pérez-de la Fuente of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History told BBC News.

”This paper represents a very good example of the kind of detailed information that can be extracted from amber fossils.”

Dracula’s tick

Amber is fossilised tree resin. The sticky substance can trap skin, scales, fur, feathers or even whole creatures, such as ticks.

In this case, the researchers found a type of tick, now extinct, that is new to science. They named it, Deinocroton draculi or “Dracula’s terrible tick”.

“Ticks are infamous blood-sucking, parasitic organisms, having a tremendous impact on the health of humans, livestock, pets, and even wildlife, but until now clear evidence of their role in deep time has been lacking,” said Enrique Peñalver from the Spanish Geological Survey (IGME), the lead researcher on the study.

The fossils in amber may echo the fictional world of Jurassic Park, but they will not give up the secrets of dinosaur DNA.

All attempts to extract DNA from amber specimens have failed since the complex molecule is too fragile to be preserved.

However, the fossils do give a snapshot of the lives of the feathered dinosaurs, some of which evolved into modern-day birds.

 H.Z