Oldest dinosaur embryos give insights into infancy and growth
Friday, November 12, 2010 - 15:40
in Paleontology & Archaeology
After sitting in collections for nearly 30 years, some remarkably well-preserved dinosaur eggs and their contents are offering new insights into the infancy and growth of early dinosaurs. They represent the oldest embryos of any land-dwelling vertebrate ever found. The eggs, found in 1976 in South Africa, date from the early part of the Jurassic Period, 190 million years ago. They belong to Massospondylus, a member of a group of dinosaurs known as prosauropods that are the ancestors to the later sauropods -- the large, four-legged dinosaurs with long necks, typified by the popular ' Brontosaurus' and Diplodocus.