A 70 million-year-old dinosaur egg discovered, is in perfect condition

“It's a complete surprise”, Gonzalo Leonel Muñoz, paleontologist at the Argentinian Natural Sciences Museum “Bernardo Rivadavia”, for National Geographic. The dinosaur's “Fosions are often found, but the eggs are much rarer, and this is in spectacular”.

Photos published by the laboratory of Comparative Anatomy and Vertebroan Evolution (LACEV) show team leader Federico Agolín, holding the seemingly boiled egg because of extraordinary preservation. According to them, this is perhaps the first find of its kind in South America and even a complete nest was found near the egg.

Researchers believe that the egg belonged to Bonapartenykus, a small carnivorous dinosaur (teropod), who lived during the late Kretake period. “Zaconly we find herbivore eggs, such as long - neck saropods, but this has spherical shape and thicker shell”, Muñoz explains.

The find is especially rare because the eggs of carnivorous dinosaurs are more delicate because they are the ancestors of birds, and their shells are more thin and fragile.

The egg, similar to an ostrich embryo, will be sent to the Argentina Museum of Natural Sciences for detailed analysis. Scientists would conduct scans to see if an embryo is still stored inside it, which would help to determine the exact species and in the deeper sense of dinosaur evolution toward modern birds.

If it is really a carnivorous dinosaur, we can learn much about how their eggs were developed and how birds were born”, Muñoz added. “Any information this egg will give us will be unique and highly valuable”.

While at the moment there is no record of how DNA can be extracted from shells, scientists call this one of the most important paleontological discoveries in South America in recent years.