The Chinese city of Heyuan is just the latest city to be added to the list of locations in China where a massive quantity of dinosaur eggs have been located. It’s become the stuff of local legend, but experts believe that there are thousands more waiting to be found, in places around the area. While Heyuan is just the latest member of the dinosaur egg club, this particular find is amongst the most impressive of all-time.
This time though it was construction workers, instead of professionals uncovering the eggs. Hard to believe something that started out, as a construction project would turn into a major dinosaur fossil excavation. Researchers have located 43 fossilized eggs in this particular site, which sounds incredible on paper – because it is – but for many in the region – it was just another day. In fact, a city in the southern portion of China actually holds the Guiness World Record for the most eggs found in any one place.
David Evans of the Royal Ontario Museum pointed out that, “This particular area of China is actually world famous for (its) abundance of dinosaur eggs,” and went on to point out that, “It’s just a quirk of fossil preservation … certain regions in the past had environments that were favourable for dinosaurs to lay their eggs, and those places were also good places for the eggs to become fossilized.” At the end of the day, this is a matter of just being in the right place at the right time when the eggs were actually there.
Ironically enough, the place where the eggs were found is affectionately known as, “Home of Dinosaurs,” to locals. The city and region is a proud place when it comes to dinosaurs as they have had a major impact on the region then, and clearly still have that major impact today – in a different way. Some of the eggs that were found measured between 5-7 inches, which is incredible given the circumstances.
