Originally published at: Scientists found a fossilized dinosaur sitting on eggs containing fossilized embryos | Boing Boing
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Really interesting. I wonder if oviraptorids were more careful parents than other groups, because it seems like a lot of these nesting findings are associated with them…including the one that gave the name Oviraptor, just originally misinterpreted as them trying to steal eggs. Although apparently there is also reason to think some did not brood all the time, since the eggs are blue-green, which at least in modern birds is usually for camouflage while the parents are away.
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Some future paleontologist will discover fossilized embryos, inside fossilized eggs, beneath a fossilized dinosaur next to a fossilized paleontologist.
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Uh-oh
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The eggs still had butt prints on them!
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I wonder if this points to the dino being warm-blooded? Otherwise, wouldn’t it’s butt just maintain the nest at ambient temperature?
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I think by now there’s no question at all that theropods like oviraptorids were warm-blooded. They were even covered in feathers…had we known that when they were first found, I imagine they probably would have been considered birds, instead of setting the definition for that around Archaeopteryx.
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Do you want Jurassic Park? Because this is how you get Jurassic Park.
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I mean, for sure yes. All you have to do is listen to Muldoon and leave out the raptors, and the only casualties in the movie would have been the traitorous programmer and the lawyer that abandons the kids. Leave out the carnivores entirely and the whole thing would have been an amusing mishap at a miraculous zoo.
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YES!
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I bristle when I still hear a reference to “the extinction of the dinosaurs,” which is less and less these days, but continues to sometimes be used in mainstream media. I don’t get the sense a particularly large portion of the public realizes that dinosaurs are quite literally one of the most diverse and populous sets of species alive on Earth today, and most of us see them every day.
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I am at war with feral dinosaurs right now
this MFer is their leader. they destroy my gardens uprooting plantings scratching around and the eat the sprouting shoots. bastards!
but, how does it go?
“life, uhh, finds a way”?
well, damn dinosaur, find it in another garden!
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We use dinosaurs for our weeding in the garden. The strategy:
- Always give them a bed to dig in that’s not in use.
- Protect the plants that need it with baskets like this, turned upside-down. Around here, it seems that someone is always garage-saleing or curbsiding a few of the baskets.
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Looks like leftover “Rack of Dinosaur over a Dozen Eggs” from one of those all-you-can-eat caves.
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thank you.
not wishing to further derail the thread, I do use a lot of chicken wire the block access to the gardens, it is just that these dinosaurs (trying to stay on topic here) are wild, somewhat protected (not allowed to harm or attempt to relocate and county animal control will not come out) and they are sooo many. I realize they like dirt to scratch in, but on a coral rock island, there are not many rich, deep pockets of lovely soil for that. they love their “dirt baths” and wallow in the gardens if they get in, destroying my cultivars!
and to finish on topic, besides feral street chicken dinosaurs, we have giant green iguana dinosaurs that seem to savor orchid blossoms. then there are the saltwater croc dinosaurs, but they don’t present any threat to my gardens and are actually pretty chill - just leave them to themselves.
(edit typo)
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I mean, yes, and far more so than mammals (though still little compared to a lot of invertebrate groups honestly). On the other hand, there were the simultaneous extinctions of the ornithischians, sauropods, ceratosaurs, tyrannosaurs, ornithomimosaurs, alvarezsaurs, therizinosaurs, oviraptorosaurs, dromaeosaurs, troodontids, enantiornithine birds, and hesperornithine birds…I wouldn’t want to downplay what a huge variety of them we lost either.
Not dinosaurs, but other groups of reptiles. The traditional, most obvious difference is that dinosaurs hold their legs directly under their body, whereas lizards and crocodiles and so on have them out to the side. Crocodylians are the closest living relatives though.
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On one hand, I could say this is an egg-celent discovery.
On the other hand, should I burn such a quality pun here? Is this a big enough discovery? What if they find a bigger, cooler dinosaur with giant eggs with dragons in them?
Oh well, you can’t make an omelette without using a couple puns…
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Lol. Sounds like a challenge.
Our dinosaurs aren’t wild, and aren’t protected. We’re very kind to them of course. But if we decided instead to make them into a casserole, a) that would be legally protected, and b) there would be no feral replacements. Also, there’s a lot of soil here. I’m clearly playing this game on the Easy setting. 
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TIL. Thanks!
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