Dinosaur's 'baby' found in 70 million year old egg

70 million old Dinosaur Egg Found in  South China. Paleontologists from the University of Birmingham said that this embryo belongs to the species Oviraptorosaurs, which were toothless and beaked. Oviraptorosaurs were feathered dinosaurs that did not have teeth and had different beaks and body sizes. They lived in what is now Asia and North America during the Late Cretaceous period - between 100 million to 66 million years ago.

This fetus has been named 'Baby Yingliang'. It was found in the rocks of the 'Hekou Formation' in the Shahe Industrial Park in Ganzhou City, Jiangxi Province. This embryo is the most 'completely known dinosaur embryo' ever found. The egg is estimated 17cm long and the baby dinosaur curled inside it is estimated to be 27cm long from head to tail.

The whole information have been published in the iScience journal this week. Study co-author Darla Zelenitsky said baby dinosaur bones are small and fragile and are only very rarely preserved as fossils, making this a very lucky find. "It is an amazing specimen. I have been working on dinosaur eggs for 25 years and have yet to see anything like it," added Zelenitsky in an email to CNN.

Waisum Ma, the lead author of the study, told, "We were surprised to see this embryo beautifully preserved inside a dinosaur egg, lying in a bird-like posture. This posture had not been recognized in non-avian dinosaurs before."

The team hopes to study Baby Yingliang in greater detail using advanced scanning techniques to see a full image of the skeleton, including its skull bones because part of the body is still covered by rock.

Writer - Sahil Madaan

Please feel free to ask anything. We are happy to answer all your questions.