The embryo, nicknamed Baby Yingliang, died and remained inside the egg.
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA – About 70 million years ago, a tiny ostrich-like dinosaur wriggled inside its egg. That way he did to find the best position when he was about to hatch.
However, the most awaited moment, the hatching egg did not come. The embryo dubbed Bayi Yingliang died and remained in its eggs for tens of millions of years until researchers found its fossilized remains in China. Studies on this can be read online in journals iScience.
Yingliang baby is one of many eggs dinosaur ancients discovered during the last century. “Not only is this skeleton complete but the embryo is seen curled up in a living pose inside its egg as if the animal just died yesterday,” said Study Fellow and Assistant Professor of Paleontology at the University of Calgary, Canada, Darla Zelenitsky.
This snuggle pose has attracted researchers. Embryos of live birds are known to move into the best position known as tucking behavior to help them hatch from their eggs. However, this behavior has not been documented in dinosaurs until now.
“The discovery of this embryo hints at some pre-hatching behaviors previously thought to be unique to birds, possibly dating back to dinosaurs tens or hundreds of millions of years ago,” said Fion Waisum Ma, Research Leader and Doctoral Student of Paleobiopology at the University of Birmingham, UK.
Byi Yingliang’s eggs were excavated in the city of Ganzhou in southeast China in 2000 and not analyzed until 2015. At that time, the Chinese stone company Yingliang Group rediscovered the fossils during the construction of the Yingliang Stone Museum of Natural History.
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