70 million years ago, a baby dinosaur embryo was laid in what is now China. The image is from Shoulin Animation.
The dinosaur wriggled inside its egg and put itself in the best position to hatch. The embryo was in its egg for tens of millions of years, until it died and was found in China.
Many dinosaur eggs and nest have been discovered over the past century, but Baby Yingliang is one of a kind. The skeleton is complete from the tip of the snout to the end of the tail, and it is curled in a life pose within its egg as if the animal died yesterday, said study co- researcher Darla Zelenitsky.
Researchers like this pose. Birds are known to move into the best position to help hatch from their eggs. These behaviors have never been documented in dinosaurs.
The discovery of the embryo suggests that some pre-hatching behaviors may have been found in dinosaurs hundreds of millions of years ago.
Fossilized dinosaur embryo is a new species.
The baby's egg wasn't analyzed until 2015. The fossil was rediscovered by the Chinese stone company that had acquired the egg and put it into storage.
The embryo's skeleton was revealed during embryo preparation. It is one of the best-preserved dinosaur embryos ever reported.
The embryo of the oviraptorid was curled up to fit into its egg, which was 17 centimeters long. The skeleton had its head on the dino's abdomen and its legs on each side of it's head. Ma said in the email that it appears to be a late-stage embryo, which is similar to a chicken embryo.
2 of 2
An illustration of a baby in an egg. The image is from Xing et al.
The baby's skeleton is in its egg. The image is from Lida Xing et al.
The image 1 of 2 is a picture.
An illustration of a baby in an egg. The image is from Xing et al.
The second image of 2.
The baby's skeleton is in its egg. The image is from Lida Xing et al.
The baby was getting ready to hatch, just like a chicken embryo. The embryo moves its body and limbs a few days before hatching in chicken eggs. On hatching day, the embryo is in the best position to crack the egg, with its body curled and its right wing on top of its head. This position is thought to help the head when the chicken embryo uses its beak to crack the eggshell. Ma said that failure to do so increases the chance of death as the embryo is less likely to break out of the egg successfully.
There are 4 images, the first of which is image 1
A dinosaur with its eggs and hatchlings. Credit: Darla Zelenitsky.
An illustration of a dinosaur brooding its eggs. The image is from Masato Hattori.
An artist's reconstruction of a baby. Credit: Julius Csotonyi
A clutch of eggs. The image was taken by Kohei Tanaka.
The unique position of Baby Yingliang suggests a pre-hatching strategy similar to that of chickens and other modern birds. Zelenitsky told Live Science that before the study, they didn't know how dinosaurs were positioned in their eggs. "Now we can see that the oviraptorid dinosaurs had bird-like postures while they were inside their eggs."
Zelenitsky said that birds have pre-hatching behaviors from their dinosaur ancestors. She said the study strengthens our understanding of the relationship between dinosaurs and birds.
The study was published in a journal.
Live Science published the original article.
