science · 31 March 1989 · 35 years ago
In 1989, a 150-million-year-old fossil egg discovered in Utah was found by CAT scan to contain the oldest dinosaur embryo. The egg was still inside the mother, supposedly. is the first known egg from the 100-million-year gap in the fossil record between Lower Jurassic (South Africa) and upper Lower Cretaceous (Utah). The discovery of the egg, which was found mixed in with thousands of dinosaur bones rather than in a nest, the pathological multilayering of the eggshell as found in modern and fossil reptilians, and the pliable condition of the eggshell at the time of burial indicate an oviducal retention of the egg at the time of burial.
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