Researchers Challenge Claims of ‘Leather-Like’ T. rex Skin

A US-based marketing agency, VML, and biotechnology firms The Organoid Company from the Netherlands and Lab-Grown Leather Ltd of UK are partnering to create luxury fashion accessories using T-rex leather. The collaboration claims that the lab-grown T-rex leather will offer natural durability, repairability, and tactility, making it an eco-friendly and cruelty-free alternative to traditional leather. The material will be made from fossilized T. rex collagen, a protein that gives skin and tissues structure. However, dinosaur specialists are sceptical as there is no DNA from the prehistoric predator needed to create genuine T. rex leather. Additionally, palaeontologists have only discovered T. rex collagen in bone, not skin.

Criticism from Researchers

According to an email from Thomas Holtz, Jr., a vertebrate palaeontologist at the University of Maryland to told,Live Science, he thinks the T. rex leather claim is «misleading» after reading the announcement and was some sort of fantasy.

DNA decays after an animal’s death, and researchers haven’t found any DNA from the age of dinosaurs. The oldest preserved DNA on record is about 2 million years old, and T. rex went extinct with the rest of non-avian dinosaurs 66 million years ago. Holtz also notes that researchers lack good tyrannosaurid skin samples, as soft tissues like skin are rarely preserved in fossils. Without good samples, researchers don’t know much about T. rex skin’s characteristics.

Dinosaur collagen as a material

The upcoming T. rex-themed leather will be based on T. rex collagen, of which there is some in the fossil record. T. rex collagen, once thought to be destroyed during fossilization, has been found in some dinosaur bones. Researchers, including Thomas Carr, an associate professor of biology at Carthage College and director of the Carthage Institute of Palaeontology in Wisconsin, are sceptical about using T. rex collagen for leather. Carr believes the understanding of T. rex collagen is incomplete due to the fragmented fossilized polypeptides.

Dinosaur specialists are also sceptical, as there is no DNA from the prehistoric predator needed to create genuine T. rex leather. Additionally, skin is the foundation of leather, but palaeontologists have only discovered T. rex collagen in bone, not skin.