Dinosaur: Embryo discovered in a 70 million year old egg

Oh, you big egg! A 70 million year old dinosaur embryo was discovered in a fossilized egg from China. Researchers call the find one of the best-preserved specimens of its kind ever discovered. The embryo named “Baby Yingliang” was found in Ganzhou, southern China. Scientists from the University of Birmingham and the Chinese University of Geosciences in Beijing describe the embryo in a bird-like “crouching position,” says scientist Fion Waisum Ma: “There is a unique behavior in contemporary birds called” tucking. “Ab on the 17th day they curl up their body with their head between their legs, and from the 18th day, the 19th day and up to the 20th day they assume a final crumple position in which they put their weight on the head This posture is supposed to help the birds stabilize themselves when they try to crack the eggshell with their beak. This behavior was for a long time only suspected in birds, but now we see in our fossil evidence that dinosaurs, that are not birds, may have exhibited this type of pre-hatch behavior. ” The fossilized egg was discovered in late Cretaceous rock in 2000. Scientists had now examined it more closely over the past four years when the embryo was found in it. The results of their study have now been published just before Christmas.