More than 20 years after gracing the cover of National Geographic as “Baby Louie,” a tiny dinosaur found curled inside its egg, finally has an official name: baby dragon.
The newly described species was a giant bird-like dinosaur that laid eggs up to two feet long in nests the size of a monster truck tire. Scientists who recently studied the 90-million-year-old fossil in detail have called it Beibeilong sinensis, or “baby dragon from China,” according to a study published May 9 in the journal Nature Communications.
“I imagine them as very birdlike,” says study co-author Darla Zelenitsky, a paleontologist at the University of Calgary—much like an overgrown cassowary, an ostrich relative.
The dinosaur belonged to a birdlike group known as oviraptors, most of which were fairly small. Only three skeletons of giant oviraptors have been found, including Baby Louie, “but their eggs are extremely common,” Zelenitsky says. (Read more about feathered dinosaurs in First Dinosaur Tail Found Preserved in Amber.)
Related on the SLP
What’s more, the discovery suggests that enormous bird-like oviraptors may once have roamed wherever the giant eggs are found.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: ‘Baby Dragon’ Dinosaur Found Inside Giant Egg
