An amazing, perfectly preserved dinosaur embryo has been found in China
2 min read
credit, France Press agency
The researchers said the egg was most likely preserved by a sudden landslide that buried it, protecting it from scavengers.
Scientists have announced the discovery of a perfectly preserved dinosaur embryo that was preparing to hatch, just like a baby chick.
The fetus was discovered in Ganzhou, southern China, and researchers estimate it is at least 66 million years old.
It is believed to be a toothless theropod dinosaur, or oviraptorosaurus, whose name was Baby Yingliang.
Researcher Fion Waisum Ma said it was “the best dinosaur embryo ever found”.
This discovery also gave researchers a greater understanding of the relationship between dinosaurs and modern birds. The fossil shows that the fetus was in a coiled position, a behavior seen in birds just before they hatched.
“This indicates that this behavior in modern birds originated and evolved first among their dinosaur ancestors,” Ma told AFP.
Oviraptorosaurs, or “egg-stealing lizards,” were feathered dinosaurs that lived in what is now Asia and North America during the late Cretaceous period — between 100 million and 66 million years ago.
Paleontologist Steve Brusatte, who was also part of the research team, tweeted that it was “one of the most impressive dinosaur fossils” he’s ever seen and that the embryo is about to hatch.
credit, AFP/University of Birmingham
Artistic impression of a dinosaur in a fully wrapped egg
credit, Julius Csutouni
The Yingliang baby is 27 cm long from head to tail and rests inside a 17 cm long egg at the Yingliang Stone Museum of Natural History, China
Baby Yingliang measures 27 cm from head to tail and rests inside a 17 cm long egg at the Yingliang Stone Museum of Natural History, China.
The egg was first discovered in 2000, but has been stored for 10 years.
Only when construction began on the museum and the sorting of ancient fossils did the researchers turn their attention to the egg, which they suspected contained an embryo.
Part of the dinosaur’s body is still covered in rocks, and researchers will use advanced scanning techniques to create an image of its complete skeleton.
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