How does a dinosaur hatch eggs? A question that perhaps we have never asked ourselves but that has a really interesting answer. For the first time, in fact, the habits related to the parenting of oviraptorosaurs have been studied
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves himHow does a dinosaur hatch eggs? A question that perhaps we have never asked ourselves but that has a really interesting answer. For the first time in fact, the habits related to the parenting of oviraptorosaurs, a group of dinosaurs that lived in the Cretaceous in the northern continents, were studied.
According to the study conducted by an international team of researchers in Asia and North America, these creatures arranged their elongated eggs around a central crevice in the nest. The latter was able to support the weight of the parent, allowing him to warm them with body heat without crushing them and in the meantime also offering protection.
Modern birds are descended from a large group of mostly carnivorous dinosaurs called theropods, which, including the fearsome T-rex, are thought to have laid eggs.
But very few theropods built nests and that is why the brood of oviraptorosaurs is so important. Dinosaur parenting has been difficult to study due to the low number of fossils, but for the first time, light has been shed on the incubation behavior of these creatures.
The ancient feathered relatives of modern birds lived about 67 million years ago. Characterized by bony crests and long lizard-like tails, oviraptorosaurs boast a famous specimen, nicknamed "the chicken of hell", scientifically called Anzu wyliei.
Most of them were "small" in size so they probably came in 100 kg per menu. They were very similar to birds, with a skull resembling that of parrots.
The research team examined the shape and size of more than 40 different nests, mostly native to China and Mongolia, to determine their behavior. They found that the diameter of the nest thus varied from 35 cm for the smallest species to 330 cm for the largest such as Macroelongatoolithus.
Indeed, the hollow space of the nest seemed to increase with the size of the species. According to the scientists, the smaller oviraptorosaurs probably sat directly on the eggs, stacked on top of each other but inserted into a crack, so as not to damage them.
"The large species may not have sat directly on their eggs," said Kohei Tanaka, a researcher at the Nagoya University Museum and lead author of the study. "The eggs are arranged in a circular pattern with a large central opening".
According to the study, the behavior of birds sitting in the nest and brooding probably evolved from theropod dinosaurs, and the research provides further evidence.
The research was published in Biology Letters.
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Francesca Mancuso
Photo: Kohei Tanaka via BBC
