Author: Carolyn Gramling / Source: Science News for Students
When a sparrow-sized bird died about 110 million years ago, she had an egg inside her body.
Over time, pressure crushed and flattened that egg. Now scientists report it’s the first unlaid bird egg found inside a fossil.Scientists unearthed the fossil 11 years ago in northwestern China. Last year, paleontologists led by Alida Bailleul took a closer look. Bailleul works in China at the Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins in Beijing.
At once the researchers noticed something odd: The bird had a strange sheet of tissue between her pubic bones. Bailleul examined a piece of the tissue under a microscope. She found that it had come from an egg. The researchers shared their discovery March…
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