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| A photograph of an adult Psittacosaurus and 34 babies found in Laioning Province in northern China in 2003. (Photo courtesy of Jinyuan Liu, Dalian Natural History Museum) |
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An adult dinosaur from China, found beautifully preserved with 34 babies tucked nearby, is potent additional evidence for the theory that dinosaurs cared for their young, said Montana State University paleontology assistant professor David Varricchio.
Varricchio is one of five authors on a paper describing the specimen that will be published in the Sept. 9 edition of the prestigious journal "Nature."
Titled "Parental care in an ornithischian dinosaur" the paper describes an adult Psittacosaurus--a plant-eating dinosaur smaller than a black labrador--and 34 young found in Laioning Province in northern China in 2003.
Varricchio said the skeletons are completely articulated, meaning the bones are intact and assembled as they were in the live animals. What's more, the adult and young were found upright with their legs tucked underneath.
"Typically they roll on their sides when they die," Varricchio said. "They assume a death posture."
But in this case, the adult and babies--the entire specimen measures just 2 feet in diameter--went from the realm of the living to a rapid burial, Varricchio said, although the scientists don't know how.
"This brings paleontologists closer to how they were when alive and suggests the adult was taking care of the young," he said.
Dinosaur parenting--most famously postulated by MSU paleontologist Jack Horner some years ago--is enhanced by this finding, Varricchio said. Horner based his parental care arguments on the occurrence of separate concentrations of duckbill dinosaur hatchlings and nestlings and on bonebeds of juveniles and adults found near Choteau, Mont. He named the dinosaur Maiasaura, or good mother lizard. The specimen from China is unique because it has an adult with babies, Varricchio said.
"It's one more piece [of evidence] to further support that parental care occurred among dinosaurs," Varricchio said. The closest living relatives of dinosaurs, birds and crocodiles, also care for their young, he noted.
The scientists also found a hint of a basin-type structure. They can't tell from the sediments whether the structure was a nest or merely a depression the animals had momentarily inhabited.
A specialist in dinosaur reproduction and in interpreting the geologic context in which fossils are found, Varricchio was asked to join the project by a colleague in Taiwan. The specimen is preserved in the Dalian Natural History Museum in Dalian, China.
Other authors on the paper are Qingjin Meng, Jinyuan Liu and Chunling Gao of the Dalian Natural History Museum, and Timothy Huang of PaleoWorld Research Foundation in Taipei, Taiwan.
Contact: David Varricchio, (406) 994-6907 or djv@montana.edu. For a copy of the paper, contact Annette Trinity-Stevens, annettet@montana.edu; (406) 994-5607 or Evelyn Boswell, (406) 994-5135; evelynb@montana.edu
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