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Course: American Museum of Natural History > Unit 1
Lesson 2: How do scientists study dinosaurs?- Where in the world did dinosaurs live?
- Where in the world did dinosaurs live?
- Did dinosaurs travel in herds or packs?
- Did dinosaurs travel in herds or packs?
- How fast were dinosaurs?
- Were dinosaurs warm-blooded?
- Were dinosaurs warm-blooded?
- How fast did dinosaurs grow, and how long did they live?
- How fast did dinosaurs grow, and how long did they live?
- What was dinosaur skin like?
- What color were extinct dinosaurs?
- What color were extinct dinosaurs?
- What were the biggest and smallest dinosaurs?
- Did dinosaurs fight?
- How did dinosaurs reproduce?
- How intelligent were dinosaurs?
- New research points to dinosaurs' colorful past
- New dinosaur research: Microraptor's feather color revealed
- Quiz: How do scientists study dinosaurs?
- Exploration Questions: How do scientists study dinosaurs?
- Answers to Exploration Questions: How do scientists study dinosaurs?
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How did dinosaurs reproduce?
The Central Asiatic Expeditions, led by AMNH's Roy Chapman Andrews and Walter Granger, discovered some of the earliest, well-preserved dinosaur eggs in Mongolia during the 1920s. The oval-shaped eggs, about 20 cm long, were thought to belong to the most commonly found dinosaur at the Flaming Cliffs, Protoceratops. However, AMNH expeditions in the 1990s discovered identical eggs, one of which contained the embryo of an Oviraptor-like dinosaur, which altered our view of which dinosaur laid these eggs. Also, skeletons of Oviraptor were discovered squatting on top of clusters of eggs, with their arms folded back against their body, just like many living birds brood on their nests. Created by American Museum of Natural History.
Want to join the conversation?
- Would these eggs have a calcium (chicken-like) shell or more leathery (crocodile-like) shell?(4 votes)
- It might be related to how closely they lived to bodies of water. There is no reason for all eggs to have been the same either, we're talking about large numbers of species living in different conditions around the planet for 135 million years.(5 votes)
- Would males and females brood the eggs (like penguins) or just female dinosaurs (like chickens)?(0 votes)
- It depends on what dinosaur you are meaning(2 votes)
- Who would help incubate and brood the egg?
The mother, the father or both?(0 votes)- It probably depends on what kind of Dinosaur.
I've heard that in the case of small Theropods like Troodon and Oviraptor that both parents probably took care of the nest.(1 vote)
Video transcript
Dinosaurs reproduced just like all other
animals do, I mean, certainly that we
know a lot from crocodiles we know a lot from birds but we also, we found a lot of dinosaur
nests, I mean as far as we can tell is that is all dinosaurs, non-bird dinosaurs, laid eggs. In some cases
we know that, that the animals brooded their nests,
just like modern birds do. We found a couple of remarkable discoveries that
animals, sitting on top of their nests, you know brooding their clutches, you know,
just like the chickens do on a farm today, so that at least in
some forms there probably was a great deal of parental care as well.