Eggs with the oldest known embryos of a dinosaur found
Palaeontologists have identified the oldest known dinosaur embryos, belonging to a species that lived some 190 million years ago.
The eggs of Massospondylus, containing well-perserved embryos, were unearthed in South Africa back in 1976.
The team writes in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology that the dino was an ancestor of the giant, plant-eating sauropods, such as Brontosaurus.
The study also sheds light on the dinosaurs' early development.
The researchers used the embryos to reconstruct what the dinosaurs' babies might have looked like when they roamed the Earth.
Having studied the fossilised eggs, the team, led by Professor Robert Reisz of the University of Toronto Mississauga in Canada, discovered that the embryos were the oldest ones ever found of any land-dwelling vertebrate....
Read entire article at BBC News
The eggs of Massospondylus, containing well-perserved embryos, were unearthed in South Africa back in 1976.
The team writes in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology that the dino was an ancestor of the giant, plant-eating sauropods, such as Brontosaurus.
The study also sheds light on the dinosaurs' early development.
The researchers used the embryos to reconstruct what the dinosaurs' babies might have looked like when they roamed the Earth.
Having studied the fossilised eggs, the team, led by Professor Robert Reisz of the University of Toronto Mississauga in Canada, discovered that the embryos were the oldest ones ever found of any land-dwelling vertebrate....