By Mindy Weisberger, Senior
Writer | August 31, 2017 04:54pm ET
A type of bird-like dinosaur that
lived in what is now China during the Cretaceous period — about 145.5 million
to 65.5 million years ago — laid eggs that had a bluish-green tint, the first
evidence of pigment in dinosaur eggs, according to a new study.
The well-preserved eggshells
belonged to the oviraptorid Heyuannia huangi, and analysis revealed the
hints of blue-green color, the researchers said. Oviraptorids were a
small-bodied, short-snouted group of dinosaurs with toothless beaks, and are
known from fossils found in Mongolia and China.
Blue and green egg hues are found
in eggs belonging to many types of modern birds, and were long thought to have
originated in bird lineages. This new finding, however, implies that egg
coloration appeared earlier in the dinosaur family tree, and might
have emerged alongside nesting behavior that left eggs partially exposed in
nest mounds, rather than buried underground, the scientists wrote in the new
study.
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