U of T team finds 190 million year old dino eggs

SOUTH AFRICA -- An ancient dinosaur nesting site, the oldest ever found, has been excavated in the Free State, the University of the Witwatersrand said on Wednesday. Paleontologists found clutches of eggs, many with embryos, as well as tiny dinosaur footprints Researchers said this was the oldest known evidence showing that dinosaur hatchlings remained at the nesting site long enough to at least double in size.The nests were from the prosauropod dinosaur known as the Massospondylus and were 190-million-year-old. At least ten nests were found at several levels. Each one had up to 34 round eggs in tightly-clustered clutches. The researchers said the distribution of the nests in the sediments showed the dinosaurs returned repeatedly to the site, and apparently nested together. The research was led by Canadian paleontologist, Robert Reisz, a professor of biology at the University of Toronto. Hans-Dieter Sues from the Smithsonian Institute in the United States, Eric Roberts from James Cook University in Australia, and Adam Yates from Wits, were part of the team. Reisz said he suspected there were many more nests in the cliff still covered by tons of rock.