Life restoration of a close-to-hatching oviraptorosaur dinosaur embryo, based upon the new specimen “Baby Yingliang.” Credit: Lida Xing
Over the last 100 years, lots of fossilized dinosaur eggs and nests have actually been discovered, but finding one with a well-preserved embryo within is exceptionally rare. Now, scientists reporting in the journal iScience on December 21, 2021, have actually detailed one such specimen discovered in southern China.
Whats more, their research studies lead them to recommend that oviraptorosaurs (a group of therapods closely related to birds) handled a distinctive tucking posture prior to they hatched, a behavior that had actually been considered special to birds. It raises the possibility that tucking habits might have developed first amongst non-avian theropods during the Cretaceous, the scientists say.
” Most known non-avian dinosaur embryos are insufficient with skeletons disarticulated,” said Waisum Ma of the University of Birmingham, U.K. “We were amazed to see this embryo perfectly maintained inside a dinosaur egg, lying in a bird-like posture. This posture had not been acknowledged in non-avian dinosaurs prior to.”
The fossilized dinosaur embryo originates from Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province, southern China.
Animated life reconstruction of a close-to-hatching oviraptorosaur dinosaur embryo, based on the brand-new specimen “Baby Yingliang.” Credit: Lida Xing
It had been gotten in 2000 by Liang Liu, director of a business called Yingliang Group, who believed it may include egg fossils. It then ended up in storage, mainly forgotten until about ten years later, when museum personnel during the construction of Yingliang Stone Nature History Museum sorted through the boxes and unearthed the fossils.
” Museum staff determined them as dinosaur eggs and saw some bones on the damaged cross section of one of the eggs,” Lida Xing of China University of Geosciences, Beijing, said. The fossils were then prepared, revealing the embryo concealed within, which they named “Baby Yingliang.”
Photo of the oviraptorosaur embryo “Baby Yingliang.” Credit: Xing et al./ iScience.
In the brand-new study, Xing and associates report that the head lies forward to the body, with the feet on either side, and the back curled along the blunt pole of the egg, in a posture formerly unacknowledged in a non-avian dinosaur. Thats especially noteworthy since its similar to a late-stage contemporary bird embryo.
Comparison of the specimen to other late-stage oviraptorosaur embryos suggests that before hatching, oviraptorosaurs developed avian-like postures late in their incubation. In modern-day birds, such coordinated embryonic motions are related to tucking, a behavior thats managed by the central nerve system and is vital for hatching success.
The notion that such pre-hatching behavior might have stemmed among non-avian theropods can now be even more investigated through more research studies of other fossil embryos. But first, the researchers state theyll continue studying this uncommon specimen in a lot more depth, using various imaging techniques to image its internal anatomy, such as skull bones, and other body parts that are still covered in rocks.
For more on this discovery, read Exquisitely Preserved Dinosaur Embryo Found Inside Fossilized Oviraptorosaur Egg.
Referral: “A remarkably preserved in-ovo theropod dinosaur embryo clarifies avian-like prehatching postures” by Lida Xing, Kecheng Niu, Waisum Ma, Darla K. Zelenitsky, Tzu-Ruei Yang and Stephen L. Brusatte, 21 December 2021, iScience.DOI: 10.1016/ j.isci.2021.103516.
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, 111 Project, Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan.