The first record of fossilized soft parts in ossified tendons and implications for the understanding of tendon mineralization

Abstract

Preservation of soft parts (collagen fibres, blood vessels and cells) in extinct vertebrates is rare and usually limited to fossilized bone and cartilage. Well-preserved coarse collagenous fibre bundles embedded in a mineralized matrix of tendons, as well as numerous hollow, tubular structures consistent morphologically with fibril bundles, blood vessels and associated cells, were identified in ossified tendons of Late Cretaceous ornithischians from North America and Central East Asia. Detailed, high-accuracy imaging, along with spectroscopic characterization of those fibrous structures and comparison with ossified tendons of modern-day turkeys, support the proposition that physiologically driven tendon ossification is common for avians and non-avian dinosaurs. The examined soft parts were preserved through the pathway of iron-induced crosslinking and alumino-silification, documenting a variety of pathways for the preservation of soft parts, depending on the burial environment. For the first time, the structure of dinosaur fossilized tendons is analysed in detail, revealing shared histogenetic principles with modern birds and the nature of preservation.