The fossilized offspring of a family of mammoth duck - billed dinosaurs has been found in a Mongol mining land site known as the Dragon ’s Tomb . fossilist have unveil an extremely young group ofSaurolophus angustirostris(meaning “ lizard crest ” ) , part of the visually halt hadrosaurid group , within this small area of the Gobi Desert . The researchers , from Ghent University and the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences , account their findings this week in the journalPLoS One .
The Dragon ’s Tomb – an inarguably fantastic name for an excavation site – is famous among paleontologists for discoveries of non - quick dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous , a period of geological time cease with the 65 - million - yr - oldextinction eventthat wiped them out . unusually , researchers have now uncovered three or four extremely immature species of duck-billed dinosaur here , so untested in fact that they could be described as “ babies . ”
Two associated eggshell fragments were also recovered from the site , indicate that the babe had possibly just been contain or were still in their ballock before they were eat up . The writer think that it is likely all four specimens were part of the same nest to begin with locate on a sandlike river money box , which at one percentage point overflowed and smothered them all during a wet summertime time of year .
One of the crushed , fossilised sister hadrosaurs institute at the site . Image credit : Dewaele et al./PLoS One
Well - maintain and fill in cadaverous dodo ofS. angustirostrishave been found in the area before , but a uncovering like this , containing up to four freshly born dinosaur , is far rare . Their tiny skull are only 5 % of the length of the fully - produce adult specimen .
The herbivorous hadrosaurs are often referred to as “ duck - bill , ” as their heads somewhat visually resemble the aforesaid modern - sidereal day water fowl . Their flattened , beak - slant snout would have been ideally suited for cutting vegetation away from limb . This name may be somewhat of a missed chance , however , as their cranial decoration is by far their most distinguishing characteristic . Their crest varies between subfamily but is undoubtedly a salient forcible characteristic in all of them . The Lambeosaurinae subfamily generally have hollow crests , which paleontologist suggest might have been used to produce unique sound , whereas the Saurolophinae lacked any such air chamber .
In any case , the dodo of these baby specimen , with their poorly grow crests , demonstrate that crown growth begins before they even cover from their eggs . The eggshell in head closely resemble those found fromS. angustirostrisrelatives come up elsewhere in Mongolia .
One of the most well - maintain and complete fossilised hadrosaur specimens was excavate from the Hell Creek Formation in North Dakota . The saving of the fossil is spick , with peel , ligaments , tendons and fragments of internal organs all still intact , along with the majority of the bony feature . Dakota , as the fogy was named , was basically a mummified dinosaur . By looking at the uphold muscle mass , palaeontologist wangle to work out that it probably had the ability to outrun predators , including the infamousTyrannosaurus rex .
