Beijing, China

Chinese researchers have published a paper claiming to have found a prehistoric tapeworm partially intact inside a sample of 100-million-year-old amber. The mid-Cretaceous Kachin amber was discovered in Myanmar. According to the scientists at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the discovery of a tapeworm from this era is extremely rare, and it could bear the traces of DNA of its prehistoric host.

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Tapeworms span from less than one millimetre to over 30 metres in length. They can infect humans, and livestock and live in almost all kinds of environments.

The discovery indeed is fascinating and reeks of the beginning of the Sci-fi movie Jurassic Park, where scientists used prehistoric mosquito remains to extract the DNA from extinct creatures from a time when dinosaurs ruled the Earth.

According to Luo Cihang, the first author of the study, “The current find is the most convincing body fossil of a platyhelminth ever found.”

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The tapeworm may be carrying the DNA of dinosaurs

As per the research, the tapeworm might have hooked itself to the intestine of a host belonging to the Early Cretaceous period. The Cretaceous is usually noted for being the last portion of the "Age of Dinosaurs." 

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It could mean that the tapeworm may be carrying DNA samples of various dinosaurs, including the large, meat-eating deinonychus, the horned carnotaurus, or a massive carcharodontosaurus, which boasted a bigger skull than a tyrannosaurus rex.

Host creature might be marine dinosaur

The study highlights that the amber was deposited into the amber on shore, indicating its host might have been a marine dinosaur. According to one theory, the host may have been trapped on land and died, causing the tapeworm to detach itself from the host’s intestine and move out of the body and into sticky amber.

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As per another theory, the sea creature which hosted the tapeworm might have been eaten by a land-roaming dinosaur. As and when its host was being eaten, the tapeworm would have made its way out and be stuck in the amber.

(With inputs from agencies)