Paris: Scientists on Wednesday said they had unearthed a treasure trove of fossilised dinosaur embryos dating back some 190 million years, a find that sheds light on how these enigmatic reptiles developed in the egg.
Palaeontologists excavated more than 200 bones from 20 embryonic dinosaurs in Lufeng in China`s Yunnan province, they wrote in the journal Nature.
The remains were from a long-necked herbivore called Lufengosaurus, a common dinosaur in the Early Jurassic period that measured about eight metres (26 feet) when fully grown.
Analysis of the femur, the longest bone in the dinosaur`s body, showed the reptiles grew very quickly inside the egg, which in turn suggests the Lufengosaurus had a short incubation period.
The team also found evidence that muscles played an active part in the developing femur by contracting and pulling on the hard bone.
"This suggests that dinosaurs, like modern birds, moved around inside their eggs," said Robert Reisz of the University of Toronto Mississauga in Canada`s Ontario province.
"It presents the first evidence of such movement in a dinosaur."
AFP
