Clever, bird-like dinosaurs that lived 74 million years ago got cozy in communal nests, study suggests

Hen-like dinosaurs that lived as much as 74 million years in the past did not hog nests; as a substitute, these beaked dinosaurs shared communal nests the place a number of feminine nestmates typically laid greater than 20 eggs collectively, which these feathery dinos then brooded to maintain heat, new analysis suggests.

Most dinosaurs are thought to have laid eggs “en masse” and buried them within the floor for incubation, like crocodiles and different cold-blooded reptiles do right now. However not Troodon, a small predatory dinosaur that was carefully associated to trendy birds and which lived within the late Cretaceous, 74 million to 66 million years in the past. Researchers have been already conscious of brooding habits in some theropods — a gaggle of bipedal, largely meat-eating dinosaurs that features Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor — and recorded an ultra-rare dinosaur fossil brooding atop its eggs in 2021.