Bird Is The Word
A fossilized dinosaur egg more than 66 million years old revealed there is a link between modern-day birds and the extinct giant reptiles of millions of years ago, USA Today reported.
About 20 years ago, a Chinese mining company found a dino egg in China’s southern Jiangxi province. The egg was later put in storage. Recently, a research team examined it and found the bone remains of an embryo.
Naming it “Baby Yingliang,” scientists said the discovery will “help us answer a lot of questions about dinosaur growth and reproduction with it.”
In their paper, they wrote that Baby Yingliang was an oviraptorosaur, a species closely related to birds and belonging to the theropod group. Theropods were carnivorous dinos that had small forelimbs and walked on two feet – such as the terrifying Tyrannosaurus rex and velociraptor.
But the team also found another connection to birds: The embryo had a very similar tucking position that is only seen in birds before they hatch, marking the first time such a position was seen in non-avian animals.
The position involved having its feet on the side of its head and its back against the shell. Today’s birds stay in that position before hatching – otherwise, they have a higher chance of dying before birth.
Researchers suggested that modern-day birds’ hatching practices could have originated from non-flying dinosaurs but more research needs to be done to understand how the two species are linked.
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