China News Service, Beijing, August 19 (Reporter Sun Zifa) Chinese researchers accidentally obtained a strange-looking egg fossil during a field investigation in Henan three years ago-the size of an egg, the overall shape of the egg, the very thick egg shell, and the damaged egg shell.
The research team of Associate Professor Han Fenglu of China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) and the latest collaborative research with Chinese and foreign counterparts confirmed that the egg fossil was an extinct, huge southern type living in the late Cretaceous period (about 100 million to 66 million years ago).
This is the first detailed study by paleontologists on the Cretaceous tortoise embryo fossils in Henan, and it is also the first time to associate tortoise eggs with specific adult genera and species based on embryos
Embryo of egg fossil turtle
Embryo of egg fossil turtle Turtles originated in the late Triassic, and have lived for more than 200 million years and spread throughout most of the world.
Since the Mesozoic, a large number of turtle bones and egg fossils have been preserved all over the world, but turtle embryo fossils are rarely found.
At present, only in Germany, Mongolia, Brazil, the United States, Henan, China and other places have officially reported tortoise and turtle embryo fossils, but these studies have not conducted in-depth studies on embryonic bones
In June 2018, after Han Fenglu and his colleague Jiang Haihai obtained the egg fossil on field trips in Henan, they realized that it might be a major discovery.
Confirm the eggs laid by Nanyang Yugui
Confirm the eggs laid by Nanyang Yugui Han Fenglu said that this egg fossil is relatively loose and fragile, and it is not easy to repair.
Although the embryonic bone of the egg fossil indicates the shape of the turtle, its eggshell is a different kind, especially the thickness of the eggshell reaches nearly 2mm, which is thicker than the eggshells of all living tortoises
Joint research team University of Calgary, the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology in Canada, China Ke Xueyuan Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of turtles and eggs and other fossils experts, conducted a systematic study of the fossil eggs, they use now living turtles The functional relationship between adult body and egg size and weight is inferred.
Academy of Sciences Why has an extremely thick eggshell?
Why has an extremely thick eggshell? As the extremely thick eggshell of Nanxiong Tortoiseidae has now completely disappeared, it is impossible to compare ancient and modern, and it is impossible to draw accurate conclusions
extreme The research team conducted detailed demonstrations on the above various hypotheses, and finally concluded that the thick eggshells of the southern male turtle family are likely to adapt to an abnormal extreme environment, which is a specialization, and when the environment changes, it is also Was finally eliminated
extreme It is worth mentioning that although the large-sized southern male tortoises were completely extinct at the end of the Cretaceous, the Rafters, which are closely related to the southern male tortoises and have a slightly thinner egg shell, continued smoothly into the Cenozoic
In addition to the research on the fossil embryos of the Nanyang Yu tortoise egg itself, Ke Yuzheng, the first author of the paper and a master's student at China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), also conducted research, statistics and discussions on the reproduction and evolution strategies of the entire softshell turtle, and obtained a general body shape.
"The embryo of this giant tortoise is precious.
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