A 66 to 72-million-year-old dinosaur embryo has been discovered inside a fossilized egg that scientists describe as one of the best-preserved specimens of its kind ever found. The embryo, dubbed “Baby Yingliang,” was discovered in Ganzhou in southern China. It belongs to a toothless theropod dinosaur, or oviratorosaur. Scientists from the University of Birmingham in the U.K. and the China University of Geosciences in Beijing observed the embryo in a “tucking” position, which was previously thought to be the pre-hatching behaviour of birds. “This behaviour has long been thought unique to birds but now we see evidence in our fossil that even in non-bird dinosaurs they might have the same type of pre-hatching behaviour,” said Fion Waisum Ma, a joint lead author of the study from Birmingham University.
