Paleontologists from Yunnan University have found a unique dinosaur specimen in southern China: remains of a specimen of an oviraptorsaur sitting on a nest of eggs with fossilized hatchlings.
Specifically, it was recovered from rocks from the Upper Cretaceous, about 70 million years old, in the city of Ganzhou, in Jiangxi province.
Oviraptorsaurus
He oviraptorsaurus It is part of a group of bird-like theropod dinosaurs that thrived during the Cretaceous Period, the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, which spanned from 145 to 66 million years ago.
Specifically, the remains found belong to a large, probably adult, oviraptor crouching in a bird-like incubation posture over a clutch of at least 24 eggs. At least seven of these eggs They preserve bones or partial skeletons of unhatched oviraptorid embryos inside. The team also carried out oxygen isotope analyzes indicating that the eggs were incubated at high temperatures similar to those of birds.
Although some adult oviraptorids have been found before in nests of their eggs, embryos have never been found inside those eggs, as explained Shundong Bi, from Yunnan University and first author of the study describing the finding:
Dinosaurs preserved in their nests are rare, as are fossil embryos. This is the first time a non-avian dinosaur has been found, sitting on a nest of eggs preserving embryos, in a single spectacular specimen.
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The news
World's first dinosaur specimen found sitting on a nest of eggs with fossilized babies
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.