Ancient parasites in the bones of a titanosaur made it look like a zombie

By Joshua Rapp Learning

An illustration of the titanosaur with open wounds caused by parasites

Hugo Cafasso

Some of the oldest signs of bone disease may have been caused by tiny 83-million-year-old parasites that infected a titanosaur and are among the largest land animals to have ever lived. This is the first parasite discovery in a dinosaur bone.

“It’s a new type of parasite,” says Aline Ghilardi of the Rio Grande do Norte Federal University in Brazil. “We have nothing like it.”

This fossilized parasite was seen in a specimen of a dwarf titanosaur, a species first found in a …