It's a very exciting prospect that means this is the oldest example of parental care. |
Most dinosaur embryos are from the Cretaceous period (146 to 65 million years ago), |
So we are suggesting this was a relatively helpless little hatchling. |
The head is quite large. The pelvic girdle is very small. That's where most of the muscles that would be used for locomotion are located, |
The only explanation for that is they must have been fed by the mother. That would be oldest evidence of parental care in the fossil record, |
These animals do not have any teeth, and since they are ready to hatch, that is strange, |
This is much more direct evidence of parental care, and it's 100 million years older than other findings suggesting dinosaurs acted this way. |
We are looking at the very beginning of dinosaur evolution. |
When somebody slammed a door in the building, my technician who preparing this felt that, |