More than 250 eggs from one of the largest dinosaurs to ever walk the Earth have been found in 92 hatcheries in central India, according to a team of paleontologists who made the discovery.
The find reveals intimate details about the lives of titanosaurs, which were between 23 and 85 feet long depending on the species, researchers from the University of Delhi said in a study published in the journal. PLUS ONE daily last week.
«Our research has revealed the presence of an extensive rookery of titanosaur sauropod dinosaurs in the study area and offers new insights into the nest preservation conditions and reproductive strategies of titanosaur sauropod dinosaurs just before they went extinct,» Harsha Dhiman said. , lead author of the study. she said in a Press release.
Paleontologists have been able to identify six different types of eggs out of the 256 they found during excavations between 2017 and 2020, according to the study.
This suggests significant diversity in species that lived from the late Jurassic Epoch, around 163.5 million to 145 million years ago, to the end of the Cretaceous Period, roughly 145 million to 66 million years ago, the study added. .
«Eggs and eggshells are considered trace fossils, and their discovery can be examined as indirect evidence for the existence of life,» Guntupalli VR Prasad, a co-author of the study, told NBC News on Friday.
Found in the Lameta Formation, a sedimentary geological formation in central India known for fossil discoveries, Prasad said, the egg species «may represent intraspecific variation,» which could suggest a greater diversity of titanosaurs than those depicted. by the skeletal remains found in the region.
Multiple shell and ovum-in-egg, or “egg-in-egg,” pathologies have been identified at this site, indicating that “the creatures had reproductive physiology similar to birds and possibly laid their eggs in a similar manner.” studio said.
However, he added that the laying pattern «showing randomly spaced eggs with similar matrix content inside and outside the eggs, indicates that their nesting pattern is more similar to that of crocodiles.»
The team also suggested that titanosaurs bury their eggs in shallow pits like crocodiles and incubate them with solar radiation and geothermal heat.
«The presence of many nests in the same area suggests that these dinosaurs exhibited colonial nesting behavior like many modern birds,» the study added. «But the narrow spacing between the nests left little room for the adult dinosaurs, which supports the idea that the adults left the (newly hatched) young to fend for themselves.»