When Scientists Studied Fossilized Dinosaur Eggs They Found An Amazing Secret Inside Their Shells

when scientists studied fossilized dinosaur eggs they found an amazing secret inside their shells millions of years ago in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia some dinosaur embryos were frozen in time eventually against all the odds they made their way to the vaults of the American Museum of Natural History in New York now scientists have been using new approach to take closer look at them and what they have found could change what we know about dinosaurs up until now the science surrounding dinosaur embryology had remained mystery over the years in fact researchers have been unable to establish just how long it took for the ancient creatures to hatch but thanks to some new research led by Florida State University FSU this riddle may have been solved Gregory Erikson biology professor has been examined in embryos belonging to pair of different species of dinosaur and by establishing their age he and his team have reached some fascinating conclusions about how dinosaurs lived and reproduced in fact their discoveries could even shed light on the mass extinction that wiped these creatures from the earth throughout history dinosaur fossils have been source of intense fascination for mankind and with research being more sophisticated now than when these giant remains were first discovered we are constantly learning new things but it's by no means just fully form dinosaur specimens that have fascinating secrets to reveal to us the science of paleontology began in the mid 19th century when researchers in Britain now to dinosaur bones for the first time before long they theorized that these creatures reproduced in manner similar to modern-day reptiles however it wasn't until later in 1859 that the first fossilized eggs were actually discovered uncovered in France these giant fossils were incorrectly identified as in two species of bird as such they were overlooked for long time in fact it would be another 64 or so years before experts successfully identified clutch of dinosaur eggs this time the discovery was made by researchers from the American Museum of Natural History working in Mongolia from that point on dinosaur eggs started to emerge from every corner of the world but what of the creatures that once inhabited these shells while some of the fossils had formed after the creatures inside had successfully hatched it others told different story and in rare cases the tiny remains of developing creatures had also been preserved before the discovery of dinosaur eggs little was known about how the creatures develop it inside but now that they had access to fossilized embryos experts were able to begin to arisin about this process and over time many of them concluded that the incubation process was similar to that seen in today's birds but in 2013 Montana State University's David IVA Riccio published paper which proposed an alternative theory according to him certain dinosaur eggs were equipped with pores suggesting that they were covered up underground in turn this implied that the incubation process had more in common with that of modern-day reptiles without any definite conclusions however much surrounding this area of paleontology remained mystery in 20-17 statement from Florida State University Erickson explained some of the greatest riddles about dinosaurs pertain to their embryology virtually nothing is known did their eggs incubate slowly like the reptilian cousins crocodilians and lizards or rapidly like living dinosaurs the birds hoping to answer this question once and for all Erikson decided to take an interest in approach apparently just like humans reptiles produce substance which is known as dentin on daily basis found in the teeth this tissue mineral Isis into tough core that builds up in layers over time thanks to this process researchers are able to determine the age of some organisms by looking at the layers in their teeth as Erickson told The Washington Post in 2017 you can basically just count those up and figure out how long it took them taken to form in fact he likens the approach to noting the rings of tree to establish how long it's been alive with this technique in mind Erickson started to wonder if the embryos of dinosaurs could be studied in this way and so he reached out to experts at Canada's University of Calgary and the American Museum of Natural History in New York basically he wanted to see if there was way to test his theory despite the fact that fossilized dinosaur embryo are extremely uncommon both institutions were able to assist Erickson in his research at the American Museum of Natural History researchers unearthed dozen eggs that had been discovered in Gobi Desert in Mongolia according to experts they belong it to the species Protoceratops and Drowsy creature related to the Triceratops at not quite seven ounces these eggs were relatively small roughly the same proportions as potato however the other specimens that Erickson was able to get hold of were in totally different league discovered in the Canadian province of Alberta they belonged to dinosaur known as hype across Ora's Steve and Gary capable of growing up to 30 feet in length the duck-billed type chrysalis laid eggs that weighed almost nine pounds visually they could be described as having proportions roughly the same as volleyball but though these specimens were very different to the ones found in Mongolia they yielded similarly excited material for Eriksson within both sets of eggs researchers had discovered the fossilized embryos of dinosaurs but could Erickson use downton analysis to learn about their age and thus the amount of time they might have taken to hatch working as the head of team of researchers the professor set out to find the answer first Erikson and his team used CT scanner to look at the dentition present in the embryos jobs then they removed number of teeth from the fossilized remains using microscopes they were able to zoom in on the ancient specimens to find exactly what they had been searching for underneath the microscope the lines of dentin in the teeth were clear as Erickson told The Washington Post knew we were in business now it was possible for the team to determine how long the embryos had been alive we could literally count them to see how long each dinosaur had been developing as he explained in the FSU statement for the researchers evolved it it was an exciting development in the same statement Erikson's co-author Darla linetsky explained time within the egg is crucial part of development but this earliest growth stage is so poorly understood because dinosaur embryos are rare embryos can potentially tell us how dinosaurs develop it and grow very early on in life and if they are more similar to birds or reptiles in these respects in fact as result of the study Erikson and his team were able to acquire solid evidence to suggest how long dinosaurs like hypocracy auras and Protoceratops took to hatch and according to Erickson himself it's the first time that such conclusion had been rigid so what exactly did they learn from these ancient remains well the team were able to calculate that somewhere close to 40% of the area's incubation period would have been spent developing teeth as such they estimated that these dinosaurs took long time to hatch ABB's double the amount of time compared to avian eggs of much the same size specifically the team discovered that the smaller hypocracy rows would have taken approximately three months to hatch meanwhile the larger Protoceratops may have spent as many as six months developing inside the egg apparently it's the first time that researchers have been able to pinpoint specific incubation times for non-avian dinosaurs but that's not all while hypocracy Rose was undeniably sizable dinosaur it was far from the biggest and because modern reptiles and birds indicate that larger eggs take more time to hatch it's likely that some creatures had much longer incubation period in fact Erikson believes that it could have stretched it to almost 12 months it's really surprising Ericsson told The Washington Post don't think that people would have entertained the idea that they would have incubated over the better part of year however for very kyo who had long believed that dinosaur reproduction was more similar to that of reptiles damn Birds the news was less of shock in modern science it's generally been believed that birds are the closest things the dinosaurs that are alive today as such it's not surprising that many experts have deduced that the reproductive processes might be similar however thanks to Erikson and his team it can now be theorized that the creators of the Mesozoic era actually had more in common with reptiles typically bird eggs have relatively short incubation period with embryos usually taken between 10 and 30 days to emerge from their shells even emperor penguins whose young take the longest to hatch out of any alien species spent just two months developing however modern reptiles are different story regularly referred to as cousins of the dinosaurs today's reptiles have average incubation period of between one and two months but it's not just the time that it takes for their eggs to hatch that's different to their prehistoric relatives apparently the way in which they interact with their developing young is also at odds with the dinosaurs unlike most birds today's reptiles are known for burying their fertilized eggs underground and while some species will remain with their young in order to protect them the vast majority abandoned them to fate but if dinosaur eggs took similar time to incubate did they also engage in such data to approach to Parenthood amazingly there is evidence to suggest that dinosaurs unlike modern-day reptiles remained with their young throughout the incubation period according to Vireo previous research has indicated that parental care existed within some species however this typically related to those with eggs that were limited in size and likely took less time to hatch but if some dinosaur eggs took the best part of the year to hatch that would have been long time for the parents to remain in one location of course their presence would have protected their young and prevented them from being eaten by predators but might this lengthy incubation period have actually contributed to their ultimate extinction interestingly the discovery is made by Erikson and his team have called many pre-existing theories into question for example it's long been suspected that some dinosaurs spent the warmer summer months in the Arctic then this line of thinking goes they would have migrated south to Canada for the colder part of the year but now such journey seems improbable given the time that it would have taken some dinosaur embryos to develop it seems unlikely that the creatures could have migrated at all moreover it wouldn't have been easy for the adults to choose site for their nests because the eggs took so long to hatch it likely would have been necessary to find spot that could be looked after for long period but those weren't the only difficulties associated with turned into nest of eggs for an extended time by staying in one place for months dinosaurs may have made themselves more vulnerable to starvation natural calamities and predators in short they were already at disadvantage when disaster eventually struck somewhere close to 66 million years ago scientists believe an asteroid dramatically collided with our planet afterwards it's thought that debris from the impact filled the atmosphere this would have prevented light from the Sun from reaching earth in the ensuing darkness temperatures plummeted and ecosystems were thrown into disarray in the end scientists believe this event led to the extinction of 75% of living things on the planet meanwhile the creatures that did survive likely did so by being adaptable and fast to reproduce for example the progenitors of contemporary Birds are thought to have had short incubation periods this would have allowed them to quickly repopulate the stricken planet but with their slow incubation times creatures like hypocracy rose and Protoceratops wouldn't have found it so easy to reproduce in the statement from FSU Eriksson explained we suspect our findings have implications for understanding why dinosaurs went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period whereas amphibians birds mammals and other reptiles made it through and prospered but although Erikson and his team believed that the dinosaurs slowed incubation period may have stood in the way of their survival it wasn't the only factor apparently these lumbering creatures were also disadvantaged it in some other ways for example as large warm-blooded animals they were terrible at conserving energy aside from that Erickson claims the dinosaurs also took long time to mature even after they had finally Hatchett all in all evolutionarily speaking these creatures were not particularly well equipped to handle change and when their habitat drastically altered they had little to help them adapt to their new world the dinosaurs found themselves holding some bad cards Erikson told the New York Times in 2017 they had dead man's hand now millions of years after the mass extinction creatures like hyper cross auras and Protoceratops have long since vanished from the earth but thanks to researchers like the team at FSU we are still learning more about them every day you