Palaeontologists have found the first known example of a fossilised turtle embryo preserved inside an egg, an unusual time capsule from the Late Cretaceous.
Fossil turtle eggs are rare finds. Rarer still are fossil turtle embryos, the tiny bones that help experts connect fossil nests with the adult species. “Turtle eggs are usually small, the eggshell is often paper thin, and the embryonic bones are fragile and tiny,” says Darla Zelenitsky at the University of Calgary in Canada, who was an author on the study.
The egg from a land-dwelling turtle was found by a farmer in Henan Province, China, who donated it to the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan. Researchers there and at other institutions worked together to take scans of the egg to see the microscopic bones inside. The palaeontologists also took sections of eggshell and imaged them under a scanning electron microscope to get a better look at their layers.
https://www-newscientist-com.cdn.am...e-cretaceous-period-had-extra-tough-eggs/amp/
Fossil turtle eggs are rare finds. Rarer still are fossil turtle embryos, the tiny bones that help experts connect fossil nests with the adult species. “Turtle eggs are usually small, the eggshell is often paper thin, and the embryonic bones are fragile and tiny,” says Darla Zelenitsky at the University of Calgary in Canada, who was an author on the study.
The egg from a land-dwelling turtle was found by a farmer in Henan Province, China, who donated it to the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan. Researchers there and at other institutions worked together to take scans of the egg to see the microscopic bones inside. The palaeontologists also took sections of eggshell and imaged them under a scanning electron microscope to get a better look at their layers.
https://www-newscientist-com.cdn.am...e-cretaceous-period-had-extra-tough-eggs/amp/