The smallest non-avian dinosaur eggs ever discovered have been discovered in China and have been assigned to a never-before-seen species. The tiny fossil treasures, each about the size of a grape, were discovered at a building site just days after they were likely destroyed by construction work.
The little six egg It was recovered during a field survey of a construction site near Ganzhou in southeastern China in 2021. According to Chinese official media. The fossilized shells, known as 'little Ganzhou eggs', were irregularly arranged within a mass of rock, making it difficult to determine whether they were part of a single nest. This rock dates back approximately 80 million years, to the Paleolithic era Cretaceous period (145 million to 66 million years ago).
The smallest egg was 1.1 inches (2.9 cm) long, breaking the previous record for the smallest non-avian dinosaur egg, which was held by an egg recovered from Japan. This was placed by a chicken-sized dinosaur Haemolithus murakami About 110 million years ago and is 1.8 inches (4.5 cm) long, according to Guinness Book of World Records. For comparison, the newly discovered eggs are about half the length of most chicken eggs.
In a study published October 14 in the journal Historical biologyThe researchers revealed that the eggs likely belonged to a never-before-seen species of non-avian theropod dinosaur – a group of largely predatory dinosaurs such as… Tyrannosaurus rex – Which they called Menolithus ganchoensis. It is currently unclear how large it is M. ganzhouensis They may grow after hatching.
Related to: The rarest dinosaur fossil found incubating its eggs
The tiny eggs are exceptionally well preserved. Detailed analysis of the fossilized shells using a scanning electron microscope revealed that the internal structure of the eggs remained almost completely intact.
Future studies on these eggs could reveal more about the reproductive biology of late Cretaceous theropod dinosaurs, study co-author said. Fenglu HanA paleontologist at the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan said in A Translated statement.
Dinosaur eggs vary greatly in shape and size, and their size does not always predict the growth of the species that laid them. For example, some ornithopods, or duck-billed dinosaurs, laid eggs that were 5.4 inches (13.7 cm) long, while some titanosaurs—the largest creatures to ever walk the Earth—hatched from eggs only 5.9 inches (15 cm), despite growing up to four times longer than ornithopods.
The newly discovered eggs are very small but not quite as small as the eggs some have laid The last remaining dinosaurs are birds.
The record for the smallest known bird egg belongs to the hummingbird (Minimum melissauga), whose eggs are up to 0.4 inches (0.1 cm) long and lighter than a paper clip, according to Guinness Book of World Records.
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