Scientists have discovered 92 nest sites containing a total of 256 fossil eggs in the Narmada Valley in central India belonging to titanosaurs, which were among the largest dinosaurs that ever lived. The find, published in the journal PLOS ONE, reveals intimate details about the lives of titanosaurs in the Indian subcontinent.
The Lameta Formation, located in the Narmada Valley of central India, is well known for fossils of dinosaur skeletons and eggs from the Late Cretaceous period, which lasted about 145 to 66 million years ago, the researchers said.
A detailed examination of these nests allowed researchers from the University of Delhi, New Delhi and colleagues to draw conclusions about the life habits of these dinosaurs. They identified six different types of eggs, suggesting a higher diversity of titanosaurs than represented by skeletal remains from the area.
Based on the layout of the nests, the team deduced that these dinosaurs buried their eggs in shallow pits like modern crocodiles. Certain pathologies found in eggs, such as the rare case of “egg-in-egg”, suggest that titanosaurian sauropods had a reproductive physiology similar to that of birds, and may have laid eggs sequentially, as seen in modern birds.
The presence of many nests in the same area suggests that these dinosaurs exhibited colonial nesting like many modern birds. However, the close spacing of the nests left little room for the adult dinosaurs, supporting the idea that the adults left the hatchlings (newborns) to fend for themselves.
These fossil nests provide a wealth of data on some of the largest dinosaurs in history and date from shortly before the end of the age of dinosaurs, the researchers said. The findings make a significant contribution to paleontologists’ understanding of how dinosaurs lived and evolved, they added.
