Discovery of “babies” dinosaurs in their nest – Le Figaro

At least three dinosaur skeletons still in the egg hatching or shortly after the time of their death have been unearthed in the area called “the tomb of the dragon” of the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, said on Wednesday Belgian scientists .

Discovered in this area famous for its wealth of dinosaur fossils from the late Cretaceous (between 70.6 and 65.5 million years), scientists describe three or four perinatal Saurolophus angustirostris specimens of dinosaurs, and two fragments of eggshell.

Saurolophus angustirostris or “crested lizard”, were large herbivorous dinosaurs, up to twelve meters long and weighing over two tons. Many of their skeletons, well preserved, have been discovered.

The baby dinosaurs were probably in their nest, installed on a sand bank of a river, when they died, the estimate Paleontologists from the University of Ghent and the Royal Institute of Natural Sciences of Belgium. Their work is published in the American scientific journal PLOS ONE.

The length of the skull Saurolophus baby is about 5% that of the larger adult specimens known, which indicates that they should be in the early stages of their development.