First Ever Perfectly Preserved Dinosaur Embryo Was Found Inside A Fossilized Egg

A well-preserved dinosaur embryo inside of a fossilized egg has been discovered and is the first one of its kind to be found.

The fossil was collected by Yingliang Group researchers from Ganzhou, Jiangxi province in southern China in 2000, but then put in storage for about 10 years. It was not apparent at the time that the fossils put away held a preserved dinosaur embryo. The fossil was rediscovered during the construction of the Yingliang Stone Natural History Museum, according to a news release.

"Museum staff identified them as dinosaur eggs and saw some bones on the broken cross section of one of the eggs," said Lida Xing of China University of Geosciences, Beijing, co-author of a paper about the discovery published on Tuesday.

Researchers are calling the fossil “one of the best-preserved dinosaur embryos ever found” and it is helping them understand new information about species from that time. They named the fossilized embryo “Baby Yingliang,” after the museum in China.

The tucking position that the embryo is in proves that it has bird-like genetics. This means that the embryo found is part of the “theropod group” in which birds are descended from a lineage of small theropods. It is believed that the tucking behavior may have been evolved through non-avian theropods.

"Most known non-avian dinosaur embryos are incomplete with skeletons disarticulated,” said Waisum Ma of the University of Birmingham, U.K. in the paper.

"We were surprised to see this embryo beautifully preserved inside a dinosaur egg, lying in a bird-like posture. This posture had not been recognized in non-avian dinosaurs before," he added.