Dinosaur Egg Stash Found During China Roadwork

Road work in the southern China city of Heyuan was interrupted on Sunday when construction workers noticed something unusual in the ground — a fat stash of dinosaur eggs — 43, to be exact.

The discovery adds to an already impressive collection of dinosaur eggs discovered in the city, which calls itself "Home of Dinosaurs."

The Heyuan Dinosaur Fossil Museum was recognized with a Guinness World Record in 2004 for housing the largest collection of dinosaur egg fossils. That record was 10,008. Now that number will grow by 43.

Among the newly recovered eggs, 19 were fully intact and the largest was more than 7 inches in diameter.



Why so many dinosaur eggs in Heyuan? Was there something appealing there for brooding dinos back in the day? Apparently it has to do with the region’s soil.

Du Yanli, the museum's curator, told CCTV News, "The eggs were found in the rock strata of red sandstone, an environment in which other dinosaur egg fossils have also previously been found."

Most of the dinosaur eggs currently in the city's museum were deposited by oviraptorid and duck-billed dinosaurs, which roamed the Earth 89 million years ago. Cu Yanli said they will need to further examine the new eggs to determine what species of dinosaur laid them millions of years ago.