Brazil: Fossilised eggs dating 60-80 Mn yrs ago belongs to dinosaurs, confirms scientists

Palaeontologists, who discovered a nest of five eggs that got buried in loose sediment some 60 to 80 million years ago, have finally confirmed origins of fossils. Discovered by a research team in Brazil last year, fossilized eggs were initially believed to have belonged to crocodiles, however, a deeper study has shed a different light. According to le researcher William Roberto Nava, eggs have a thick shell and were too large to be that of crocodiles and confirmed that eggs belong to carnivorous disaurs.

expert from  Paleontological Museum in Marilia also revealed that eggs of disaurs and crocodiles also differ in size as former measure four to five inches long and two to three inches wide whereas latter measure longer than three inches. Moreover, he said that a porous or smooth texture is a characteristic associated with eggs of prehistoric crocodiles also called 'crocodylomorph' whereas egg-shells of disaurs have a 'ripple-shaped' texture.

" eggs are a little bigger than those of crocodylomorph. So we're associating se larger eggs, which are five, with some kind of ropod disaur, that is, a carnivorous disaur that lived at this point and used it millions of years ago to lay se eggs", Nava said in an interview with g1.

How were eggs preserved for so long?

Uneard in Presidente Prudente city of Brazil's São Paulo, transformation of soil into sandstone over time h a big role in preserving eggs. Over a course of millions of years, eggs got covered with layers of sand which turned into sandstone allowing egg to withstand test of time." Who kws if in one of se [five] eggs we have a fossilized embryo. It would be super cool, it would be something new for Brazil", Nava was quoted as saying by g1.

Here's ar ground-breaking discovery of disaur egg

Earlier in December 2021, scientists in Ganzhou, China h discovered a perfectly preserved embryo of a disaur, which was at least 66 million years old. embryo reportedly belonged to a toothless ropod disaur or oviraptorosaur, which is a feared maniraptoran disaur from Cretaceous Period. Tap here to re more about discovered fossil.

Im: Twitter/@NNivak