Fuzhou: Fossil dinosaur eggs from the Late Cretaceous epoch were discovered recently in Huangzhu village of Shanghang county, Fujian province, the county’s bureau of natural resources said on Thursday.
They were discovered by a research team from the Fujian Institute of Geological Survey. Experts said it could be an egg nest that was in the hatching stage or had already hatched, and had been preserved at its original location.
Last year, more than 30 fossil footprints of dinosaurs from the Late Cretaceous epoch were found.
According to Wang Qiang, associate researcher at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the nest included a large piece of an eggshell. “Through the large eggshell, we can judge that the size of the egg would have been 15 to 17 centimeters,” Wang said.
Experts believed the shell was from an oviraptor, a bipedal dinosaur of the Late Cretaceous period having a toothless jaw and long forelimbs with clawed fingers. “There are many questions that need further research, such as how long it took to lay the eggs,” Wang said. Fujian is a southeastern Chinese province known for its mountains and coastal cities. In Xiamen, a port town and former foreign concession, the island of Gulangyu has pedestrianized streets and 19th-century colonial villas. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
