Dinosaur eggs originate in the South African Park

Fossilized Dinosaur eggs supposed to be several 190 million years old have been originate in a South African national park. Paleontologists have exposed 10 nesting sites, jointly with the path of hatched fledglings, in a rock face face in the Golden Gate Highlands National Park in the foothills of the Maluti Mountains of the north eastern Free State. The nests are supposed to have been made in the early on Jurassic period by the herbivore dinosaurs, the Massospondylus carinatus.

Each of the 10 nesting sites contains a number of clutches of eggs, and they are establishing at different levels in the cliff face. It is thought that a number of the eggs also contain fossilized embryos. Massospondylus grow up to four to six meters long as adults, told by researchers, but their eggs are just six centimeters in diameter.

According to the research available this month in the magazine, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the greatly planned environment of the nests suggests the mothers may have agreed their eggs cautiously after laying them. “Even though the dinosaur fossil record is wide-ranging, we really have very little fossil details about their reproductive biology, mainly for early dinosaurs,” said by Dr David Evans, guardian of vertebrate paleontology at the Royal Ontario Museum located in Canada.

The fossilized tracks left after by the dinosaurs illustrate that hatchlings stay in the nest awaiting they doubled in size, and that the little Massospondylus walked on four legs while young. The animal then probable stood straight on two legs as an adult. The nests were found close to the same place in the foothills of the Drakensberg Mountains in the Free State region where scientists before establish the oldest known dinosaur embryo in 2005. It was this previous find that encouraged them to return and carry on their search. “The eggs, embryos and nests come since the rocks of a nearly vertical road cut only 25 meters long,” said by the paleontologist named Robert Reisz, a professor of biology at the University of Toronto Mississauga.

“Even so, we establish 10 nests, suggesting that there is a bunch more in the cliff, still enclosed by tonnes of rock. We forecast that many more nests will be battered out in time as natural weathering process continues.” The mine work was lead by Canadian and South African researchers, and they told, their findings propose the mothers were concerned and returned frequently to the site. This is the oldest recognized evidence of such performance among dinosaurs.