Scientists on Tuesday announced the discovery of exquisitely preserved Dinosaur embryos from at least 66 million years ago that was preparing to hatch from their egg just like a chicken.
The fossil was discovered in Ganahou, southern China and belonged to a toothless theropod dinosaur or oviraptorosaur which the researchers dubbed “Baby Yingliang”.
“It’s one of the best dinosaur embryos ever found in history”, University of Birmingham reseachernFion Waisum Ma, who co-authored a paper in the journal iScience told AFP.
Ma and colleagues found baby Yingliang’s head lay below its body with the feet on either side and back curled -a posture that was previously unseen in dinosaurs but similar to modern birds.
In birds, the behaviour is controlled by the central nervous system and called “tucking” chicks preparing to hatch tuck the head under their right wing in order to stabilise the head while they crack the shell with their beak.
Embryos that fail to tuck have a higher chance of death from unsuccessful hatching.
“This indicates that such behaviour in modern birds first evolved and originated among their Dinosaur ancestor”, Ma said.
Alternative to tucking might have been something closer to what is seen in modern crocodiles which instead assume a sitting posture with head bending upon the chest up to hatching.
Oviraptorosaurs which means “egg thief lizards” were feathered Dinosaurs that lived in what is now Asia and North America during the late Cretaceous period.
They had variable beak shapes and diets and ranged in size from modern turkeys at the lower ens to massive Gigantoraptors, that were eight meters (26 ft) long.
Baby Yingliang measures around 27 centimetres (10.6 inches) long from head to tail and lies inside a 17 centimetre-long egg at the Yingliang Stone Nature History Museum.
The research team suspected they might contain unborn dinosaurs and scraped off part of baby Yingliang’ eggshell to uncover the embryo hidden within.
“This little prenatal dinosaur looks just like a baby bird curled in its egg which is yet more evidence that many features characteristic of today’s birds first evolved in their dinosaur ancestors”.
The team hopes to study baby Yingliang in greater detail using advanced scanning techniques to image its full skeleton, including its skull bones because part of the body is still covered by rock.
