Several Chinese workers were working on the construction site of a school in Jiangxi, in the southeastern part of the country, when they made a breathtaking discovery. In the ground, there lay buried 20 dinosaur eggs in a perfect oval shape. Many scientists have been dreaming of bringing dinosaurs back from the dead, and their wish is now one step closer to being fulfilled.
The dinosaur eggs reveal how diverse the Chinese environment used to be
China has been one of the main locations of dinosaur discoveries for a long period of time. In fact, this is not even the first time when dinosaur eggs are being unearthed in the country. Some time ago, paleontologists found 200 fossilized eggs which belonged to a winged species of dinosaurs called pterosaurs.
These eggs dated back to the late Triassic up until the end of the Cretaceous period. The recently unearthed dinosaur eggs are also from the Cretaceous, which is revealed by the black shells covering them. This discovery is essential for establishing the history of dinosaurs in the area, revealing that China might have harbored over 20 species of dinosaurs.
The discovery might help researchers in extracting dinosaur DNA
Also, the dinosaur eggs might help researchers in their attempt to revive the reptiles. They have recently discovered a tick preserved in amber together with a dinosaur feather, and tried to extract DNA from this sample. They hoped that the parasite still had some dinosaur blood inside its bowels. This attempt wasn’t successful, as the fossil was 99 million years old.
Their idea was extremely ambitious. At first, they only wanted to extract dinosaur blood and sequence some DNA from it. Then, they thought they might transplant this DNA into an empty egg, which had already got its own DNA extracted from it. Now, they found some well-preserved dinosaur eggs, which might help them with their attempts to get their hands on fresh dino DNA.
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons
