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Scientists announced Tuesday that they had discovered a perfectly fossilized dinosaur embryo from at least 66 million years ago about to hatch from its egg like a bird. These are the details of the milestone.
A very well preserved dinosaur embryo has been found in China, a group of scientists reported on December 21. The oviraptorosaur fossil, discovered in Ganzhou (China), has been baptized by researchers as ‘Baby Yingliang’.
“This is one of the best dinosaur embryos ever found,” Fion Waisum Ma, from the University of Birmingham and co-author of the study, published in the journal ‘iScience’, told AFP.
The ‘Baby Yingliang’ was found with his back bent, his feet on either side of his head, with his head tucked into his stomach. This position has never been seen before in dinosaurs, but it is well known in birds.
When the chicks prepare to hatch, they stabilize the head under one wing while piercing the shell with their beaks. Embryos that cannot be placed in this position are more likely to die from a failed hatch.
“This indicates that this behavior in modern birds originated with their dinosaur ancestors,” explains Fion Waisum Ma.
An alternative could have been something similar to what crocodiles do, which adopt a sitting posture, with the head only tilted on the belly.
Nestled in her egg like a baby bird
Oviraptorosaurs, whose name means “egg-stealing lizard,” were feathered dinosaurs that lived in Asia and North America during the Upper Cretaceous period.
They could have different beak shapes and diets, and their size ranged from monkeys to huge gigantoraptors, which were eight meters in length.
The ‘Baby Yingliang’ measures 27 centimeters from head to tail and lies in an egg 17 centimeters long at the Yingliang Stone Museum of Natural History.
According to scientists, it is between 72 and 66 million years old, and was likely so well preserved thanks to a mudslide that it buried it and protected it from scavengers.
It would have grown to two or three meters in length if it had reached adulthood and fed on plants.
This specimen was part of a group of several fossil eggs that had been set aside and forgotten for years.
Researchers suspected they might contain dinosaurs and scraped off part of the shell to discover ‘Baby Yingliang’.
“This dinosaur embryo in its egg is one of the most beautiful fossils I have ever seen,” Professor Steve Brusatte of the University of Edinburgh and a member of the research team said in a statement.
The specimen “looks exactly like a chick nestled in its egg, which provides further proof that many of today’s bird traits are derived from their dinosaur ancestors,” he added.
The researchers hope to study the embryo in more detail using imaging techniques to reveal its complete skeleton.
With AFP
This article was adapted from its original in French
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