Details

LOT 0456

Natural History - Hadrosaur Dinosaur Egg Pair

CRETACEOUS PERIOD, 100 MILLION YEARS B.P.

10 3/4 in. (8.85 kg, 27.5 cm).

A pair of Charonosaurus sp. hadrosaur eggs on a matrix retaining evidence of the original leathery surface.

Provenance

Acquired 1983-1990.
Private collection, Hove, UK.

Literature

See Liang, X., et al., Dinosaur eggs and dinosaur egg-bearing deposits (Upper Cretaceous) of Henan Province, China: Occurrences, palaeoenvironments, taphonomy and preservation, 2009, Progress in Natural Science; see Xing L, et al., Hadrosauroid eggs and embryos from the Upper Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) of Jiangxi Province, China, 2022, BMC Ecology and Evolution.

Footnotes

Hadrosaurs were large dinosaurs, growing up to 10 metres in length, belonging to the ‘Duck-Billed’ group of dinosaurs. They are considered the ‘herd animal’ of the Cretaceous, having been found buried together in their thousands. Dinosaur egg fossils are known from approximately two-hundred sites around the word, particularly in Asia. This nest comes from the Xixia Formation, Henan region of China, which produces some of the best preserved eggs in the world. These eggs can yield entire embryos within them, making them an essential tool for understanding the biology of these creatures.