Vampire Weekend

Amber Fossil Shows Blood-Sucking Ticks Terrorizing Feathered Dinosaurs

The new species, called 'Dracula's Terrible Tick,' changes what we know about dinosaur predators.

In a scene straight from Jurassic Park, scientists have stumbled upon 99-million-year-old Burmese amber containing the petrified remains of blood-sucking ticks entangled with feathered dinosaurs, a groundbreaking study reports in the journal Nature this week.

The paper suggests that bigger, stronger predators weren't the only ones dinosaurs of the Cretaceous period had to worry about, but also tinier ones that live on to this day, such as these ticks, who've been bequeathed a new name to discern their unique status, Deinocroton draculi, or "Dracula's terrible tick" (a 3D model of the tick is available here). It also provides evidence that ticks were in ancient Myanmar forests and were a source of disease that might have led to outbreaks among dinosaurs.

A pair of ticks appear to be tangled in a feather of what some paleontologists believe might be an enantiornithine, a prehistoric ancestor to modern day birds that exhibited teeth and claws beneath their wings. That the two were intertwined in the feather through their hairs, or setae, suggests that the ticks were "cohabitating" with the feathered dinosaur, according to the paper.

Another tick was found in a nearby chunk of amber, seemingly engorged with blood due to its swollen state.

Together, paleonotologists think Deinocroton draculi are the ancestors of the modern day skin beetle, which feeds in bird nests on the feathers, skin, and hair of the nest's inhabitants.

That the ticks and birds were found preserved together suggests a parasite-host relationship between theropod dinosaurs, a classification of ground-running dinosaurs, along with feathered, bird-like dinosaurs like the enantiornithine.

Paleontologists say this is a huge first in proving the existence of ticks during the Cretaceous era. That might seem like a minor detail in the range of dinosaur history, but scientists have long sought proof of death and disease coming from sources outside of other predatory dinosaurs. Modern tick ancestry has also been inhibited until now, and scientists could only surmise that they existed in some form and lived amongst dinosaurs. But the petrified bugs in amber provide proof that ticks, and maybe even lice, burrowed themselves in the feathers and hairs of prehistoric animals.

That the ticks are preserved perfectly in amber resin is even better. But the ticks weren't found fully immersed within the amber, which means decomposition probably altered the contents of their digestive system, making it impossible for us to understand what the ticks were exactly feasting on at the time of their death.

And while the images and storyline of Dracula's tick intertwined with a feather might seem eerily reminiscent of Michael Crichton's dinosaur classic, don't fear: There's not enough DNA within the amber to rebuild the maybe-enantiornithine.

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Tanya BasuSenior Editor, Science

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