72-million-year-old dinosaur embryo discovered inside fossilised egg

A well-preserved fossilised dinosaur embryo, still inside its egg, is providing palaeontologists with new insights into the evolutionary links between modern birds and dinosaurs.

The 72 to 66-million-year-old oviraptosaur embryo, found in southern China, reveals that the creatures took on a distinctive tucking posture before they hatched.

Researchers said this behaviour had previously been considered unique to birds.

It raises the possibility that this tucking position before hatching may have evolved first among non-avian theropods during the Cretaceous period.

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