More Eggs, An Owl Dinosaur and #SquadGoals

This week has been awesome. Since starting this awesome adventure of helping out with a dinosaur related non-profit organization, I've stumbled on some really kick ass dinosaur art and a neat dinosaur article.

I'll start with the article, which I found at Science Daily, about the study to find out how long it took dinosaur eggs to hatch.
According to the research done, they examined jaws of fossilized dinosaur embryos to look at the "growth lines" in their bones. Growth lines are formed in the bones of animals during their lives and are sort of like lines in a tree. You can count the rings to determine how old an animal is by the growth lines in their bones. From these lines, research has shown that it took 3-6 months for the sample species to hatch, which is an insane amount of time in the animal world. Can you imagine having to guard a clutch of eggs that long?

To give you perspective, I did a brief Google search on how long it takes a couple different reptile and bird species to hatch their eggs:

Crocodiles: 80 days
Snakes: 45-60 days (depending on the species it seems)
Turtles: 70 days
Crows: 18 days
Finches: 12-14 days
Eagles: 35 days

Looks like on a reptile scale, 3 months is about average, but anything longer than that seems crazy. I looked into what's known about dinosaur egg incubation, since I remember there being an article about egg pores being studied last year.
I ran across this on Earth Sky, which talks about how certain species of sauropods and earlier therapods probably buried their eggs like crocodiles, while later raptor species of therapods probably left their nests open like birds.
Which makes sense.
The dinosaur embryos in the Science Daily study was that of Protoceratops and Hypacrosaurus, a ceratopcian and a hadrosaur respectively.

• Favorite Paleo-Art of the week:

Cryolophosaurus from prepetualartistblock 

Probably not what this handsome devil looked like, but holy crap I still love it. Cause he's an owl dinosaur. :3


Badass dinosaur art that's now my phone background by lioninthetrees

Citipati covering her nest by Julio Lacerda

This is especially cool because the holotype fossils for this dinosaur was found covering its eggs during death. It's pressumed that she was guarding her eggs when she and her babies died. She's been dubbed "big mama" because of this.
Sad story, but great picture.

Sleepy Alioramus by prepetualartistblock 

I really love the color scheme of this dude, plus he's adorable sleeping in the shade. Look at his little arms. SO CUTE.

Chris Pratt with accurate raptors by Lexicon Megatherium.

#SquadGoals

Mongolian Dinosaurs Saved

     I've been following an awesome IndiGoGo project that started a little while ago to help provide education and outreach to the local population of Mongolia. Paleontologist Bolortsetseg Minjin teamed up with a local and American dinosaur experts and enthusiasts to bring over a "Museum Bus", yeah a bus with exhibits and cool crap like that, to travel around Mongolia and teach kids about dinosaurs.

     The bus isn't the only thing they're trying to use the funding for, but general paleontology education, fossil awareness and help get kids and adults excited about the amazing prehistoric history of their home land.

• Why's Mongolia so important to paleontology you may ask?

     Back in the 1920's, possibly my favorite archaeologist/paleontologist/naturalist adventure seeker, Roy Chapman Andrews, traveled to Mongolia for the first ever fossil expedition in the Gobi Dessert. At the time, the area was the wild west, a real "no man's land", which bandits and thieves that prowled the dessert. Armed with a convoy of trucks baring the American Flag and a shit ton of rifles, Andrews and his crew ventured the Gobi to find dinosaur bones.

     The fossil quarry he found was in a beautiful cliff side he named "The Flaming Cliffs", and there he found remarkable specimens of the first ever fossilized eggs, Protoceratops, and Oviraptor. 

     I've posted about Oviratpor before in my blog, and the sad misunderstanding that he was an "egg thief" before the eggs found beside him turned out to be baby Oviraptors.

     This guy was a total badass, but I plan to have a whole blog post dedicated to fan-girling out about him, so I won't go off on a tangent just yet. 

     These finds were the first of their kind, and home to much more amazing dinosaurs yet to be found.

• Where the Project stands now

     The updates I've been getting lately showed they were just shy of their projected goal, but it seems they just barely made it with a couple hours to spare, coming in at 101%.  No only does that mean the kids of Mongolia are getting a sweet Museum Bus to tour around showing them cool dinosaur stuff, but I get this amazing sticker for backing them with $10.

     I wasn't able to find a stand along picture of the sticker, but it's the one in the blue square with the crazy writing and raptor standing with it with "$10". Second from the top on the left. It says "Bayanzag" which is the Mongolian name for the "Flaming Cliffs".

     It's supposed to ship sometime in November, and you know I'll be pretty damn excited when that gets here.

     I'm so damn happy they were able to get their funding, and not just because I really wanted that sticker. I love seeing paleontology reaching new people, especially kids, because they're the ones that are going to grow up and do more amazing things with the science. 

     Enjoy your awesome Museum Bus and dinosaur stuff, kids of Mongolia!