Features / Animals
Bristol palaeontologists discover dino baby
An international team of scientists, including a palaeontologist from the University of Bristol have discovered the first ever evidence of live births amongst dinosaurs.
The animal group has previously only been thought to lay eggs, but a remarkable 250 million-year-old fossil, found in China, disproves this as it shows an embryo growing inside the mother.
This is common in other reptiles, like lizards and snakes, where babies ‘hatch’ inside their mother, but in more primitive reptiles and their ancestors, like fish and amphibians, egg-laying is the norm.
is needed now More than ever
The new fossil is of a long-necked dinosaur called Dinocephalosaurus, which lived in the shallow Scout China sea during the Middle Triassic period, over 200 million years ago. It ate fish, snatching its prey from the water by snaking its long neck from side-to-side.
Professor Mike Benton, of the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol, said: “It’s great to see such an important step forward in our understanding of the evolution of a major group coming from a chance fossil find in a Chinese field.”
Read more: 33 Wildlife Photographer of the Year pictures
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
