World’s Largest Dinosaurs Were Born Ready to Roam
Source: National Geographic
World’s Largest Dinosaurs Were Born Ready to Roam
They may have grown into giants, but tiny fossils reveal the harsh first weeks faced by young titanosaurs.
By Brian Switek
PUBLISHED APRIL 21, 2016
Even the largest dinosaurs of all time started their lives breaking out of small eggs. Now, a rare fossil of a baby titanosaur suggests that once these precocious youngsters hatched, they were on their own in a harsh landscape.
The bones, found in 70- to 66-million-year-old rock in Madagascar, belonged to a long-necked, herbivorous dinosaur named Rapetosaurus krausei. This species was a titanosaur, the group that includes the largest known dinosaurs, as well as celebrities like Apatosaurus—the sauropod formerly known as Brontosaurus.
Macalester College paleontologist Kristina Curry Rogers named Rapetosaurus in 2001, and she has continued to study the armor-studded titan ever since.
While looking through a collection of turtle and crocodile bones, Curry Rogers kept coming across tiny fossils that belonged to a baby Rapetosaurus. The rare specimen provided a perfect opportunity to examine a part of dinosaur life that experts still know little about.
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Read more: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/160421-baby-dinosaur-titanosaur-fossil-independent/
