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190 Million Year Old Dinosaur Embyro

Posted by Zonk on from the old-little-thing dept.

leprasmurf writes "Sci Tech Today is reporting that scientists have cracked open a 190-million-year-old egg to reveal the oldest known dinosaur embryo. Examination of the fetal skeleton suggests the hatchling would have required parental care to survive. This would be the earliest evidence of nurturant behavior, more than 100 million years earlier than previous examples." The University of Toronto has a release about this as well. From the article: "According to Reisz, what makes this discovery particularly significant is the ability to put the embryos into a growth series and work out for the first time how these animals grew from a tiny, 15 centimetre embryo into a five metre adult. 'This has never been done for a dinosaur. Only Massospondylus is represented by embryos as well as by numerous articulated skeletons of juveniles and adults. The results have major implications for our understanding of how these animals grew and evolved,' he says."

6 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. Old News by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Pah. This is old news.

    no really...it is.

  2. The nurturing wouldn't be surprising by ReformedExCon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Considering that modern birds are almost all nurturers of their young, it stands to reason that dinosaurs, the precursors to birds, would also have exhibited nurturing behaviors towards their hatchlings. On the other hand, reptiles, the other modern descendant of the dinosaurs by and large do not nurture their young, some, like the green sea turtle, lay their eggs in the sand and never see the babies again.

    I wonder how much nurturing had a part in the evolution of birds and reptiles. Whether the nurturing behavior in early birdlike dinosaurs led to the modern birds of today. And whether the non-nurturing behavior of other dinosaurs led to the separate branch which is populated by modern-day reptiles.

    But the question on everyone's mind is, how tasty are those embryos?

    --
    Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
  3. Here's a picture: by SilentShriek · · Score: 5, Informative

    from the NY Times

  4. Pictures by cyber_rigger · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.news24.com/News24/Technology/News/0,,2- 13-1443_1745931,00.html

  5. Re:Dating Methods by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Umm, evolution is origin agnostic. It doesn't explain how life started, just what happened once it did.

  6. Re:Dating Methods by XFilesFMDS1013 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I can't help but wonder why I don't ever see ID or creationist fossil research publications.

    Waiting for this kind of reasearch is like waiting for Duke Nukem Forever to be released. Need I say more?