Fossilized eggs found in Busan reveal a giant dinosaur species used to roam on coast
A clutch of 100 million-year-old eggs found on Busan’s coast includes a newly identified species and the first evidence that giant bird-like dinosaurs once lived there.
A palaeoenvironmental recreation of the fossil locality in the Dadaepo Formation, including the egg clutch
SHIN HYUN-JOO, SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF BASIC SCIENCES
A clutch of fossilized eggs found on the coast of Busan belongs to a species new to science, the first of its genus ever found outside China. The same site yielded the eggs of a giant, bird-like dinosaur that nested there roughly 100 million years ago, the first evidence that such large dinosaurs once lived where the city now stands.
The eggs, recovered from the Dadaepo Basin in Busan, fall into two types, according to a study published in the journal Papers in Palaeontology in May. One is a clutch of five eggs the team named Mosaicoolithus busanensis, after the city where they were found. It is the first time the egg type has been recorded in East Asia outside China, said the researchers, led by Choi Seung of Seoul National University's Research Institute of Basic Sciences and Paik In-sung of Pukyong National University.
The other egg, Macroelongatoolithus, was laid by a giant oviraptorosaur, a toothless, feathered dinosaur that walked on two legs. The animal that produced it rivaled the Gigantoraptor, one of the largest oviraptorosaurs known, which reached about 8 meters (26 feet) long and weighed around 1,400 kilograms (3,090 pounds).
"[The discovery] establishes the Busan area as a habitat for Cenomanian giant oviraptorosaurs, representing the easternmost record of Macroelongatoolithus in East Asia," the team wrote in the paper.
The study also found that the eggs' microscopic structures were largely unharmed despite the high temperature they were exposed to. The rock that buried the eggs in Busan was heated to about 310 degrees Celsius (590 degrees Fahrenheit) over millions of years, the most extreme heating recorded by any egg site in East Asia.
The discovery marks the first confirmation that large dinosaurs once lived in Busan, according to the researchers.
"This discovery is important evidence that a variety of dinosaurs lived in Busan around 100 million years ago," Pusan National University geological sciences Prof. Lim Hyoun-soo told the Busan Ilbo.
BY CHO YONG-JUN [[email protected]]
