This embryonic sauropod perished after about four-fifths of its development in an egg. (Kundrat et al. /Current Biology)
Smithsonian Magazine has a piece about the "cutest", "weirdest" baby dinosaur ever. The embryo dinosaur is thought to be a Tapuiasaurus, a sauropod that grew to about 43 feet long. The egg was smuggled illegally out of Argentina about 20 years ago. Research published in the journal Current Biology has revealed some insights into the early development of sauropod dinosaurs.
While newly studied fossil is puny—less than an inch and a half long—it was preserved in 3D, which allowed researchers to spot its unusual features, Will Dunham reports for Reuters. Unlike adult sauropod skulls, the embryonic fossil skull has a small horn on the tip of its nose, and its structure suggests the dinosaur’s eyes faced forward in its head.
“I was pretty floored. I thought it was an amazing discovery,” Adelphi University vertebrate paleontologist Michael D’Emic, who was not involved in the study, tells Lucas Joel at the New York Times.
The tiny skull is one of the best-preserved examples of a dinosaur embryo’s skull, but it was hidden from scientific research for about a decade. About 20 years ago, the skull was among several dinosaur eggs that someone smuggled from Argentina to the United States illegally.
