Easter Dinosaur!

Cuter than the Easter bunnie

Since today is Easter, I figured it was totally relevant to post about one of my favorite weird looking dinosaurs who's name is very fitting for the occasion.
Originally found in the Gobi desert during one of Roy Chapman Andrew's expeditions in 1924, this odd looking beak face was thought to have been found fossilized during the act of stealing Protoceratops eggs from a nest.
Oviraptor, or "egg thief" was named after this apparent crime, and it wasn't until 1993 when the eggs it was "stealing" were actually Oviraptor eggs! Poor guy had a bad wrap for a really long time.

Side note, I plan on doing a full post about Roy Chapman Andrews in the future, because this guy is one of the most interesting people I've ever had the pleasure of reading about. I learned about him in a paleontology course a couple years back, and was described to me as a "real life Indiana Jones", so naturally it sparked a curiosity. I ended up picking up his autobiography Under a Lucky Star not too soon after that and enjoyed the hell out of it.
In a nutshell, this guy traveled across the Gobi desert in a caravan when the desert was still a bandit infested wasteland. It was like Mad Max but with 1920's explorers and rifles.
Pretty damn cool.

Oviraptor is a weird looking therapod dinosaur that reminds me of a mutated ostrich. It's beak is a oddly shaped, which reinforced it's egg eating habits during it's original discovery. Because of it's odd curve, paleontologists at the time thought it used it to crack eggs.
Most of the artist depictions of Oviraptor show it with feathers, so I did some digging on what exactly has been found as far as feathers on these creatures. I don't see any concrete findings on feather imprints being found for this animal, but the leading theory is that Oviraptor would have "brooded"

over its nest like how modern birds do.
The nest found with the fossil remains of the creature was kind of like a dug out pit with the eggs in the middle. They think Oviraptor sat on the eggs and covered it with it's body and arm feathers to keep them warm and protected. I would assume, and this is based on my own guess here, that these creatures probably paired like how modern birds do, one to sit on the eggs while the other went for food.
There was only one skeleton found with this nest cache through, so that's not very certain. Though there was an article posted in Time talks about a pair of Oviraptor skeletons who died together from a what was probably a landslide, that apparently seem to be a set of male and female. They've been nicknamed "Romeo and Juliet", which is sweet I guess, but there were no eggs found with them. I assume they were paired together and not fighting or something.
It makes sense they'd pair, because if those eggs were left out like that, actual egg thieves would come by and snag them in a quick hurry.
Since it's theorized that Oviratpr had feathers, most of the art found for Oviraptor shows it as a colorful peacock with awesome feathers splayed across its long tail. I love it!

Oviraptor lived during the late Cretaceous, about 75 million years ago in what is now Mongolia. This big bird like dinosaur stood about 5 feet tall and weighed probably about 100 pounds. Big but not giant by any means.
It also had a cool crest on top of its head which was probably used for mating displays or warding off predators. Again, that's my own guess, but typically when crested dinosaurs that's the running theory, as that's what modern birds use theirs for.

These odd looking birdy dinosaurs are  a niche favorite with a couple toys and products available, which are totally going on my dinosaur wishlist. I'm still in the process of putting a very epic product list together for a big post. I'll have to snag one of these damn plushies soon, because it's kind of the most adorable things.

You can get this cutie at everythingdinosaur.com!

I hope you're having a great Easter and found a new favorite dinosaur to admire. I'm going to stop in on my way to work and find some discounted chocolate bunnies or Reese's Eggs to munch on.

Happy egg day!

-M