An entire nest of about 20 to 30 perfectly preserved dinosaur eggs was accidentally discovered under an excavation site in China.
Construction workers were digging up a school site on Christmas Day 2017 when one of them came across what was initially thought to simply be a large oval-shaped stone. Eventually, the group stopped excavation work on the site when they began suspecting that what they unearthed were actually a litter of prehistoric eggs.
Police authorities were called into the property, which was later sealed off as paleontologists arrived to collect the eggs. They were taken to the Dayu County Museum for dating and identification.
Eggs Laid By The Last Dinosaurs
Paleontologists revealed in a report that the eggs are 130 million years old. This means that they were laid during the Cretaceous Period in the Mesozoic Era.
The period, which started 145 million years ago and lasted for nearly 80 million years, marks the end of the dinosaurs. Toward its end, 80 percent of the prehistoric creatures died for reasons that remain undetermined up to this day. A majority of marine and flying reptiles were killed, with only plant life surviving the mass extinction.
While they were still alive, dinosaurs were believed to inhibit Ganzhou City, where the eggs were found. A separate report even stated that the China Paleontology and Fossil Protection Foundation declared the city as the "hometown of dinosaurs in China." Daya County, in particular, is believed to be a lakeshore, making it a suitable reproduction ground for the prehistoric creatures.
Eggs Recovered From Home Of The Oviraptor
True enough, a rich deposit of Oviraptor eggs was uncovered in the area. Such dinosaurs are described as small, feathered creatures with tiny wings, birdlike legs, and beaks similar to that of modern parrots. They possessed many other characteristics as birds of today, like sitting on their eggs for hatching.
Researchers reported in a study that six species of Oviraptor dinosaurs were named after Ganzhou, like the Ganzhousaurus nangkangensis or commonly known as the Ganzhou Lizard.
Some bones belonging to a Ganzhousaurus was recovered along the Nanxiong Formation near the city's railway station. The fossils are believed to be about 66 to 72.1 million years, which dates back to Maastrichtian Stage, the last of the three stages under the Cretaceous period.
Some recent reports claim that the eggs belong to Oviraptors but the Daya County Museum has yet to release the results of their investigation.
While such dinosaurs were believed to roam Mainland China and Mongolia, a fossil of a similar creature was found in Hell Creek, a rock formation encompassing both North and South Dakota.
In a statement, the fossil was determined to belong to a birdlike dinosaur with a height of 11.5 feet and weight of around 440 to 660 pounds. It is now displayed at the Carnegie Museum.
