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First Pterosaur Embryo Fossil Discovered

Posted by timothy on from the sounds-like-an-omelet dept.

blamanj writes "A fossil embryo, preserved in an almost complete egg was found in the sediment of a lake in Liaoning in northeastern China. The Liaoning embryo has a wingspan of 10.6 inches, indicating that the embryo would have grown up into a medium-to-large pterosaur."

11 of 35 comments (clear)

  1. medium to large by pizza_milkshake · · Score: 4, Funny

    it also would have made one hell of an omellete.

    1. Re:medium to large by Lars+T. · · Score: 2, Funny

      An omelette with a huge embryo in it.

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  2. Dinosaurs Among Us? by Ieshan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Interested parties might want to check out the following article from Avian Visual Cognition: Dinosaurs Among Us?

    This article is a discussion of avian evolution from an avian physiology expert and the possible "bird-dinosaur" connection.

    Very interesting stuff.

  3. Says who, exactly? by Pi_0's+don't+shower · · Score: 3, Interesting
    The Liaoning embryo has a wingspan of 10.6 inches, indicating that the embryo would have grown up into a medium-to-large pterosaur.
    While I agree that this is one possible conclusion, is there anywhere where it has evidence as to what stage of embryonic development this dinosaur is currently at? For instance, at varying stages of embryonic development, a human fetus has gills, fins, and wings. Someone viewing a gilled human fetus might even go as far as to mis-classify it. My question is, how sure are we that this is actually the dinosaur we think it is, and not some later evolutionary descendent?
  4. Any hope of Jurassic Park? by TJ_Phazerhacki · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Interesting thought - the development of dinosaurs has not really been studied to my limited knowledge. Any hope of examining dinosaur "Stem Cells", possibally contributing more to the overall study of Jurassic genetics than has so far been found?

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  5. No, no, no by barakn · · Score: 3, Informative

    It is an embryo, a fossilized embryo.

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  6. Bad embryology by yet+another+coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Maybe you are joking.

    Humans have gill slits, not gills, and limb buds, not fins or wings. The old saying is "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny." It is not exactly true, though. The embryology of humans resembles that of many mammals. It resembles fish embryology, too, but not for as long. We share similar adult body patterns and similar patterning genes to many animals, and our early embryology can looks similar. It is not as if we grow to be fish really early and then keep going since we are more evolved than fish.

  7. Re:bird-dinosaur link by Bitsy+Boffin · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Flight allows the animal to increase it's range greatly, more range = more available food sources.

    At a time when food is scarce, small winged animals who don't need much food have a distinct advantage over huge behemoths who eat a truckload with every mouthfull.

    Remember - bigger != better.

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  8. Re:Argh! by beeplet · · Score: 2, Informative

    No pictures?! This screams for pictures! It's not even worth posting without pictures! Pictures!

    Nature story with pictures.

  9. Images by mrgrey · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here's a link to the story with images.

    Link

    http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1128 68 4.htm

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  10. Re:bird-dinosaur link by barawn · · Score: 3, Informative

    no really compelling evidence that exctinction was caused by a meteor as the mainstream media implies.

    Barring the really gigantic impact crater in the south of Mexico?

    After the Chicxulub crater was found (oddly enough - with a dating of 65 million years) most scientists were pretty convinced that an asteroid (10 km is not a meteorite) killed off the dinosaurs. There may have been other contributing effects, but a 10 km object slamming into the Earth would have done extremely bad things to the planet's biosphere.