Scientists from China say they have isolated 'exquisitely preserved' cartilage cells of a 125-million-year-old dinosaur that contains organic molecules and may suggest that dinosaur DNA could one day be found.

Researchers from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and from the Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature found the nuclei which contains organic components and 'fossilized threads of chromatin' in the cartilage of Caudipteryx, a dinosaur roughly the size of a peacock.

In addition to the chromatin, the researchers found two types of cells in the cartilage: healthy cells and those in the process of dying when the animal itself died.

The authors note that preserved cell nuclei in extinct organisms such as dinosaurs is 'currently considered rare and exceptional,' but there have been previous examples of it being found.

These include certain mammals, dinosaurs from the Mesozoic era, as well as plants that are more than 600 million years old.

'Recent taphonomy experiments on plants and algae have shown that nuclei are surprisingly stable and that nuclear decay is much slower than originally thought in some conditions,' they wrote in the study.

It's likely that the cells were 'exquisitely preserved' by the silicon dioxide from volcanic ash that covered the carcass. 

'It is possible that these cells were already dying even before the animal died,' said Alida Bailleul, IVPP associate Professor and study co-author in a

Caudipteryx, about the size of a peacock, lived on the shores of Jehol Biota lake in Liaoning province during the Early Cretaceous period