Life… finds a way.
Unless it's a fossilized egg under a road, then we just find it and study it.
Sup eggheads, Trace here rockin' the fossil puns for DNews.
In the last 20 years, almost 17,000 dinosaur eggs have been uncovered in the Guandong province
in China, earning it the name "Home of Dinosaurs."
Recently they found 43 more eggs, 19 of which are completely intact, but don't go all Jurassic
Universe on me here, they're all fossils -- solid pieces of rock likely ranging from 65 to 89
million years old; well past cloning age.
So no dino-parks will result, but they do have a lot to teach us!
Dinosaur egg fragments had been identified in France as early as 1859, and the first
completely in-tact scientifically recognized dinosaur egg was discovered in 1923 in Mongolia
-- the significance there is it still contained an embryo!
Since then, eggs have been discovered in 200 sites on every continent eggcept Antarctica.
They're often just shell fragments, mainly because eggs are really tough to fossilize!
Taphonomy is the study of fossilization…
what happens to an organism from its burial until discovery as a fossil.
A fossil is sort of like the shadow, or model of a living organism in a rock.
The most common for dinosaurs and their eggs is called permineralization, widely known
as petrification.
As an organism is buried under ground, water seeps into spaces in the remains -- pulling
minerals with it.
As the minerals set, they form crystals, eventually replacing and encasing the original hard tissues
-- bones or teeth.
Even though there were millions of dinosaurs on the planet, we only find a few fossils;
because conditions have to be JUUUUST right.
The best conditions are when dinosaurs are buried in sediment shortly after death, because
otherwise bacteria and other animals go to work on the corpse!
Over time, the sediment -- sand or clay -- hardens and becomes shale or sandstone -- allowing
us to get the fossils out!
Some dinosaurs did the hard work for us, because sometimes, after a dinosaur lays eggs -- maybe
as many as 20 at a time -- they would bury them for protection.
If they bury it too deep -- then the embryo can't breathe or gets crushed, and millions
of years later, it becomes a fossil.
Eggs are far rarer than dinosaur bones, simply because they're so fragile!
If the egg is cracked, crushed or hatches, the result is usually the same, shell fragments
-- but once in a long while, an egg fossilized having never cracked, and we can explore the
embryo inside of it millions of years after it was lain!!
In the end, though, dinosaur eggs are a fascinating curio; but unless they're found near bones,
we don't know which dinosaurs laid which eggs.
Scientists can use X-Rays to CAT scan them and to see inside, or slowly scrape away the
fossilized exterior to see the embryo.
But even then, it can be impossible to guess which dinosaur species laid the eggs.
Instead, paleontologists use them to learn about how baby dinosaurs developed both inside
the shell, and after.
In Montana, paleontologists discovered nests, nurseries, eggs, embryos, hatchlings, nestlings,
and juveniles -- giving us an understanding into their young lives.
For example: it would appear, some dinosaur babies could walk right after hatching and
left the next -- their eggshells were left in-tact, while other dinos needed parental
care, and lived in their nest for a bit -- their eggshells were crushed from the pitter-patter
of little feet.