Just like   the daintiest of birds , rhinoceros - sized dinosaur parent successfully brooded their eggs in undetermined - air nest . But how did they posture on them without crushing them ? They did n’t have to , thanks to clever organization   skills . These findings were portray at theannual Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting , Science reports .

Kohei Tanaka from the University of Calgarystudied the fossils of oviraptorosaurs , feather dinosaurs closely tie in to birds . late work show that these “ egg thief lizards ” were neither lizards , nor ball thief : They were n’t eating the ball they were often find fossilized with , they were nesting . These dinosaurs ramble in system of weights from that of an Struthio camelus to that of a modern day rhino ; the latter had eggs that were up to 40 centimetre in diameter .

There ’s been debate about the sorts of nest that the largest oviraptorosaurs built . Some say they were   open nest like birds and   modest oviraptorosaurs , others say the nests were   swallow up like crocodile today . Nests that are exposed to the air   suffer from water red ink , so these sort of   ballock would have to have been less holey to prevent water from get away . base on Tanaka ’s calculations of oviraptorosaur eggs porousness , even the largest of these dinosaurs built opened - air nests .

Then he estimated the amount of weight the egg could support before cracking open . A dozen snuggly - packed egg of small and medium - sized oviraptorosaurs could bear the weight of an grownup roosting on top . As expect , the eggs of the larger guys would break if a parent sat on top of them .

So Tanaka plow to nest shape . The littler dinosaurs built nest where the eggs are throng tight together . egg in the nests of larger oviraptorosaurs , however , were arranged in a large mob around an empty center . The parent sitting   in the open space in the middle   could put most of   its weightiness on the ground , while still protecting its hatchlings - to - be .

[ ViaScience ]

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