GANZHOU, China — Researchers in China announced Tuesday that an “exquisitely preserved,” fossilized dinosaur embryo was found in Ganzhou.
According to the BBC and The Washington Post, the over 66 million-year-old embryo, dubbed “Baby Yingliang,” is curled up inside a fossilized egg. It appears to be a late Cretaceous oviraptorid theropod, scientists wrote in a peer-reviewed article published in the journal iScience.
“The head lies ventral to the body, with the feet on either side, and the back curled along the blunt pole of the egg, in a posture previously unrecognized in a non-avian dinosaur, but reminiscent of a late-stage modern bird embryo,” the authors wrote.
The researchers now believe that bird embryos’ tucking behavior may have originated “among non-avian theropods,” according to the article.
The egg, which measures about 6.6 inches long by 3 inches wide, was originally found in 2000 but remained in storage at the Yingliang Stone Nature History Museum for more than a decade, the BBC reported. Researchers rediscovered the fossil while sorting through items when construction work began at the facility, according to the news outlet.