Dinosaurs have laid colorful eggs – scientists

This strengthens the link between dinosaurs and ostriches.The tradition is to differ from the colorful egg appeared in feathered dinosaurs. This statement was made by scientists in an article in the journal Nature, reports Chronicle.info in reference to Know.

This discovery radically changes the impression of the evolution of eggs. For nearly two centuries, ornithologists have believed that different lineages of the ancestors of modern birds have sometimes "invented" this form of protection for their offspring independently of each other.

Now, the scientific community suggests that it appeared when dinosaurs began to hatch eggs.

In modern birds, there are eggs of different colors, but pure white is not uncommon. Whites and eggs, which cover all modern reptiles, are believed to have been so in antiquity, and coloring began to appear much later.

The fossilized dinosaur eggs that we find today, usually dark brown, have acquired this color during the process of fossilization and fixation of rust particles, iron oxides.

Very unusual on this background has turned out to be late eggs on the oviraptoride Heyuannia huangi. These feathered dinosaurs resembled small ostriches, lived about 66 million years ago. Their eggs have been discovered in China is distinctly blue-green.

Was it their original color or color received during the fossilization and filling of a mineral? To find out, paleontologists at Yale have drawn attention to the blue eggs of modern birds, such as blackbirds or some ostriches.

The blue-green color gives the biliverdin pigment, often associated with the brown-red protoporphyrin.

To determine if they were kept in dinosaur eggs and traces of these pigments, they were examined by mass spectrometry. The article, published in PeerJ magazine, reports this discovery.

The discovery of American scientists strengthens the evolutionary link between oviraptor and ostriches today. Apparently extinct dinosaurs and ostriches made masonry in large nests on the ground, and males were vigilantly guarded by offspring. The blue coloring of the shell could help them monitor the nest, navigate and maintain the temperature of the egg for optimal development of the offspring.