Which came first, the theropod or the egg?

December 22, 2021 2:38 AM

Meet 'Baby Yingliang': Exquisitely preserved dinosaur embryo is discovered inside a 72 million-year-old fossilised EGG in China., Ian Randall, Daily Mail, 21 December 2021 • Unearthed in Shahe Industrial Park in Ganzhou City, Jiangxi Province • Species of toothless, beaked theropod dinosaurs, or 'oviraptorosaurs' [WP] • One of the most complete dinosaur embryos known, 10.6 inches long • Posture is closer to embryonic modern-day birds than among dinosaurs • Tucking behaviour aids hatching, arose first in theropods. (The cutaway egg video and illustration are striking.)
posted by cenoxo (10 comments total)

It's a good egg!

Here's some non-Faily Mail links: BBC, Washington Post, Indian Express, UPI

A-and the science
posted by chavenet at 2:58 AM on December 22, 2021 [5 favorites]

More about the leader of the science team Lida Xing, China University of Geosciences (Google Scholar).
posted by cenoxo at 3:31 AM on December 22, 2021

Awww, what a cute lil' prehistoric chest burster. C'mon, you can do it!

Well, I guess it is a little late for that.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 6:35 AM on December 22, 2021

Well, I guess it is a little late for that.

My understanding is that life, uh, finds a way.
posted by curious nu at 7:10 AM on December 22, 2021 [7 favorites]

That's so cool! It's about five times the size of a newly hatched chicken, so does that mean that the grown animal would have been about five times the size of a chicken as well?
posted by Harald74 at 9:18 AM on December 22, 2021

The key question of course is, "Does it taste like chicken?"
posted by chavenet at 9:46 AM on December 22, 2021

One of the comments to Daily Mail dinosaur egg article: "There is 600 of them in parliment its not that special." [sic]
posted by xigxag at 11:32 AM on December 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

Dinosaur Embryos Tucked Themselves in Just Like Birds — A stunning fossil egg has allowed paleontologists to find new clues about a dinosaur’s early development, Smithsonian Magazine, Riley Black, December 21, 2021 has another reconstruction of the egg (by Paleoartist Julius Csotonyi), and a museum diorama (perhaps life-sized) of a female oviraptorid and her hatchlings.

See also images at The Royal Society - Journals > Biology Letters > Incubation behaviours of oviraptorosaur dinosaurs in relation to body size, 16 May 2018, and Wikipedia's Timeline of oviraptorosaur research.

For relative scale, Getty Images has a photo (by Wang Dongming, China News Service) of the fossilized egg in a display case at the impressive Yingliang Stone Nature History Museum in Fujian Province.

I can't wait for transporters to appear, but until that day the web is the next best thing to being there.
posted by cenoxo at 8:16 PM on December 22, 2021

"Does it taste like chicken?"

Beginning with the opening credits in The Freshman (1990), and ending with a properly prepared dinner for discerning guests, all exotic reptiles should taste like chicken smoked turkey.
posted by cenoxo at 10:12 PM on December 22, 2021

Ooo awesome. I hope Terrible Lizards cover this in their new podcast series next year.
posted by poxandplague at 4:00 AM on December 23, 2021