Scientists find preserved dinosaur embryo preparing to hatch like a bird

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/dec/21/scientists-find-perfectly-preserved-dinosaur-embryo-preparing-to-hatch-like-a-bird

by Petiver • 5 years ago

233 126 5 years ago

theguardian.com

cft3• 5 years ago

I wonder if the dinosaurs would have developed intelligence and civilization by now, had it not been for the Chicxulub asteroid?

Twisol2• 5 years ago

It only took our species a few hundred thousand years at most, while it's been hundreds of times longer than that since the dinosaurs went extinct.

At the same time, sharks never developed civilization, so who's to say?

cft3• 5 years ago

Dinosaurs were the dominant species (including the sea), unlike sharks.

tempestn3• 5 years ago

Is it inevitable that given enough time, the dominant life form in a sufficiently hospitable environment will develop higher intelligence and civilization? I'm not sure we know whether that's the case or not.

mkl5• 5 years ago

That's starting from a point almost at the finish line, with intelligent social dexterous tool-using fire-making apes. Really it took our species about 4 billion years. Every other living species has had just as long, and hasn't developed civilisation. There's every reason to think that the extinct dinosaurs, given 66 million more years, would be like every other non-human species.

jiocrag• 5 years ago

Dinosaur brain to body ratios never approached those of even early mammals AFAIK. Human brains are our specialized trait (like a rhino horn or snake venom). Like asking why fish haven’t developed civilization.

otabdeveloper4• 5 years ago

Ants developed civilization. You don't need brains for that.

greendesk• 5 years ago

For us, as intelligent species which have a civilisation, we have: 1. Ability to predict future 2. Language. This enables sharing group knowledge. 3. Abstract ideas. This has overlap to language. 4. Use of tools.

The use of tools is relevant to building a civilisation after developing intelligence. To give an example why it matters, reflect how many tools are relevant to us today or centuries ago. For example, which a more efficient transport - an eagle gliding is more efficient than a human walking. But a human using a wheel (bicycle) is more efficient. The use of wheels, controlled fire, stakes, controlled microclimate through clothes derives from the use of tools.

Given the above list, we can see that sharks and dolphins do not use tools. They have some use of language and share knowledge. They do not use tools as they are not suited for it in the water. Humans have hands which enable them to operate on multiple surfaces. Perhaps an octopus can developer higher intelligence and a civilisation? Note civilisation requires an intelligence, but it is a superset of intelligence.

Note that for any species developing intelligence and civilisation is a very energy consuming process. In a human the brain is a very power-hungry organ. Its purpose is to enable a better survival for the species it operates in. On an evolutionary scale, for humans and mammals, the brain structure we see today developed over multiple millennia - it was not a one-shot change, but going from a local minima to another local minima, if we are using optimisation language.

Going back to the octopus - perhaps it’s brain does the job done; now and then an evolutionary change might occur to develop an even more organised brain. If it works for the species, the change propagates. But if the change lowers the survival rate of the octopus due to the higher energy usage or complexity of operating a high brain - then the change will not propagate to next generation.

There is a last question, back to the dinosaurs - perhaps there was a civilisation at one of the multiple dinosaur die-offs - but most of its artefacts are wiped out? What evidence do we really have that there was not a civilisation before ours?

References: 1. Antonion Damasio. Descartes Error. 2. Adam Frank. Was There a Civilization on Earth Before Humans? https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/557180/

3. A book on Aikido, which I cannot find.

eesmith• 5 years ago

Some dolphins use tools.

"In Shark Bay, Western Australia, bottlenose dolphins Tursiops sp. carry conical sponges Echinodictyum mesenterinum on their rostra in the only documented cetacean foraging behaviour using a tool" - https://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v444/p143-153/

Also, octopuses: "The use of tools has become a benchmark for cognitive sophistication. Originally regarded as a defining feature of our species, tool-use behaviours have subsequently been revealed in other primates and a growing spectrum of mammals and birds [1]. Among invertebrates, however, the acquisition of items that are deployed later has not previously been reported. We repeatedly observed soft-sediment dwelling octopuses carrying around coconut shell halves, assembling them as a shelter only when needed." - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098220...

Lastly, your terrestrial experience might limit your understanding of what a 'tool' might be: "tool users in water often use other animals (and their products) and water itself as a tool ... Octopodes, as well as squids and cuttlefishes, also use water as a tool for protection by using jets of water to aid in burrowing for camouflage ... Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) singly and collectively expel bubbles to create nets that encircle, contain and concentrate schooling prey for easy gulping " - https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.201...

jpm48• 5 years ago

If you like SciFi this is a good take on that question. The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/48643567-the-doors-of...

zzedd• 5 years ago

also "Evolution" by Steven Baxter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_(Baxter_novel)

xpl• 5 years ago

I think you might have confused it with "West of Eden" by Harry Harrison?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_of_Eden

Daniel_sk2• 5 years ago

Intelligence and civilisation is not the goal of life or evolution. As long as the species is able to reproduce and is not cornered into a situation that requires adaption (as our predecessors once were) they can stay unchanged or without developing higher intelligence. Intelligence is just another tool that can be used to preserve life.

Valakas_2• 5 years ago

Intelligence is indeed just one tool. But as we see, maybe one of the best tools after a critical point. So it could be expected that after a while, evolution does converge to create intelligent beings who are able to control the environment and other species and even themselves, and with it, be the most successful of them all.

ChrisMarshallNY• 5 years ago

I remember reading an article (probably linked from here), that said that, in a few million years, the only sign of our own civilization would be marbles.

It’s not impossible that they did have a civilization, of sorts, and all traces have been wiped.

drran• 5 years ago

Look at crows, maybe.

https://www.thoughtco.com/crows-are-more-intelligent-than-yo...

cmrdporcupine• 5 years ago

Dinosaurs survived and are still with us as birds. They didn't evolve "civilization" but some have some intelligence, as we can see with ravens and crows which have complex problem and puzzle solving abilities and complex social structures.

luxcem• 5 years ago

Dinosaurs lived on Earth for about 170 millions years. Homo appeared on earth ~3 millions years ago, it doesnt say that they wouldnt but probably not.

Intelligence and civilization is not the pinnacle of evolution considering all the species that lived, live and will live without developing it. It's rather an oddity in the story of life.

imbnwa• 5 years ago

Simplicity always wins.

busymom03• 5 years ago

Is it possible to actually get DNA material from such preserved embryos and create dinosaurs again like the jurassic park movies?

cft3• 5 years ago

DNA completely decays after at most 1k years

busymom03• 5 years ago

Is that true if it was frozen for the entire time?

Sniffnoy• 5 years ago

You're off by at least an order of magnitude there; we have DNA samples from well further back than that, such as from Neanderthals and from mammoths.

But no, it doesn't last long enough to get DNA samples from dinosaurs. I don't know the area well enough to give a good figure, but 1 million years seems to be an upper bound from what I can find quickly.

mkl5• 5 years ago

DNA's half life has been estimated at 521 years [1] in moderate temperatures, so after 1k years a quarter of it would still be left. That must depend on the conditions though. DNA 500,000 years old has been found in ice cores (presumably a higher half life there, since of e.g. the 3 billion base pair human genome, 3e9/2**(500e3/521) ≈ 3.8e-280 would be left after that time with that half life).

[1] https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-02/whats-half-li...

vixen99• 5 years ago

A classic counterexample is

"Scientists took 166 bone samples from 151 mummies, dating from approximately 1400 B.C. to A.D. 400, extracting DNA from 90 individuals and mapping the full genome in three cases." as reported (for instance) on https://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/22/health/ancient-egypt-mumm...

fvold2• 5 years ago

No.

Chemically speaking, it's a rock. None of the original organic matter is left, it has all been permineralized.

https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/paleo/fossilsarchive/permin.html

fvold2• 5 years ago

This "perfectly preserved dinosaur embryo" is a rock.

It's in the perfectly preserved shape of a dinosaur embryo, but chemically, it's a rock. Generally speaking, that's what fossils are.

I bet Young Earth Creationists will be quoting this article for decades now. Thanks, Guardian, for the clickbait-y headline. Cheeses.

da-x• 5 years ago

True. It is sad that even when science is concerned, actual news sites are fake news generators today.

Tagbert2• 5 years ago

But this is not fake news. You are just using a more narrow definition of “preserved” than the article.

krisoft5• 5 years ago

I don’t understand what you find clickbaity about the title. For reference now when I’m reading the article the title is: “Scientists find perfectly preserved dinosaur embryo preparing to hatch like a bird”.

It is a clear and concise description of what the article is about.

konart3• 5 years ago

The title sound like they have found an embryo in some sort of permafrost with DNA and everything else.

bitexploder• 5 years ago

Also written purposefully ambiguously to entice readers to click in.

zerocount• 5 years ago

Because "preserved" implies keeping something in it's pristine or natural state. This is a fossil. My immediate thought was it was "preserved" in amber.

In any case, the sub-title declares it as a fossil, which is more accurate.

Maursault• 5 years ago

The specimen was one of several egg fossils that were forgotten in storage for decades.

Found in storage. Doesn't make it clickbaity, but...

The research team suspected they may contain unborn dinosaurs, and scraped off part of Baby Yingliang’s eggshell to uncover the embryo hidden within.

...makes me wonder about their paleontology practices.

teeray• 5 years ago

The title is like an InGen press release

tempestn3• 5 years ago

You may have a point, but giving the benefit of the doubt, perhaps they were just targeting the headline to people who understand what "perfectly preserved" realistically means in the context of dinosaur fossils. I certainly didn't consider upon reading it that they'd discovered a viable dinosaur embryo.

dredmorbius11• 5 years ago

High levels of preservation of just about anything 60--80 million years old is rare and unexpected.

Tyrannosaurus Rex is amongst the most iconic of all dinosaurs. All knowledge we have of them comes from 18 known specimens. Of those, only 8 are 50% or more complete. "Sue", one of the best preserved examples, discovered in 1990, is 85% complete. The "dueling dinosaur" specimen (found locked in battle with a Tricerotops) is 98% complete, the most perfect yet found, discovered in 2006.

These finds are rare, they're often very partial, they're often distorted by geological processes. For example, Sue's skill is deformed due to movement of the substrates it was entombed in, a fabricated replica correcting this distortion is used on the mounted display at the Chicago Field Museum, the original is displayed separately.

A "perfectly preserved" specimen is one that is intact, in its original arrangement, not damaged, and not distorted or scattered over the landscape (or more accurately, across the strata in which it was buried).

Some respect for the time, processes, and good fortune involved here would be appropriate.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specimens_of_Tyrannosaurus

freeqaz• 5 years ago

You nerd sniped me. Reading about the various famous fossils, their discovery, and restoration was really interesting!

bkandel• 5 years ago

I don't think that's a comprehensive list, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrannosaurus#Resurgent_intere... mentions that 42 skeletons have been found in western North America. I don't have the page number, but I also remember reading in Steve Brusatte's "The Rise and Fall of Dinosaurs" that there are some areas where T. rex's were so common that you can find teeth relatively easily.

Agreed that findings this well preserved are incredibly rare and fortunate.

BrazzVuvuzela• 5 years ago

It doesn't matter. YECs would say god created it to test them or the devil created it to trick them, it doesn't matter how precisely or imprecisely you word headlines about dinosaurs they still won't believe it. Stop worrying so much about whatever stupid things they think, you're not going to bring them to sanity around by being super pedantic.

simonh• 5 years ago

And now the top thread is a pointless pedantic bun fight about precise use of perfectly acceptable terminology in the headline. Again. To no good purpose whatsoever.

j4yav• 5 years ago

They should really add an HN guideline that title pedantry is discouraged. This is the fourth article I’ve jumped in the comments just today to find the top thread is about debating some word or other in the title.

teh_klev3• 5 years ago

If you read ever so slightly past the headline it says:

"At least 66m-year-old fossil discovered in southern China reveals posture previously unseen in dinosaurs"

Most people know what a fossil is and that it's rock (though other materials such as amber can do the same thing).

brink• 5 years ago

Thank you for clarifying on "Young Earth" Creationists and not just globbing all Creationists together.

whoomp12342• 5 years ago

is that where rocks come from? now I am sad looking at the ground

irrational• 5 years ago

Since birds are dinosaurs, don’t you mean “preparing to hatch like a dinosaur”?

krisoft5• 5 years ago

Obviously a dinosaur will hatch like a dinosaur. Thats tautological.

The new finding is that that individual dino appeared to be hatching in the same way present day birds do. (As opposed to for example how crocodiles do.)

The article states that this behaviour was not previously observed in dinosaur fosils therefore it was not known which way they hatched exactly.

317070• 5 years ago

No, it says in the article that what is surprising, is that the embryo was lying in the egg like a bird, _not_ like previously found dinosaur embryos, which lied like crocodiles/reptiles.

So, it was preparing to hatch like a bird, unlike other dinosaur embryos found before.

forgotmyoldacc• 5 years ago

Parent was making a pedantic comment; birds are a subset of dinosaurs. https://www.livescience.com/are-birds-dinosaurs.html

truculent2• 5 years ago

“Like an avian dinosaur” would be the modern terminology, I believe

Sharlin2• 5 years ago

(Edited:) Yes, but that’s just a long-winded way saying ”like a bird”. This dinosaur was not itself a bird because birds evolved only after the K–Pg event.

tsimionescu• 5 years ago

Birds are dinosaurs, but dinosaurs are not birds. If the article were about a fossilized mammalian embryo being born like a dog, you wouldn't say "since dogs are mammals, don't you mean born like a mammal?".

ravenstine2• 5 years ago

Dinosaurs are reptiles of the Dinosauria clade. Just because birds have an ancestry that stems from dinosaurs doesn't mean they are dinosaurs.

avereveard• 5 years ago

thanks for giving us a 600px image

here's the study source, with beautiful high res version of the pictures https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(21)01487-5

loceng• 5 years ago

Here's direct link to pictures of actual egg in link shared above, for those curious: https://els-jbs-prod-cdn.jbs.elsevierhealth.com/cms/attachme...

Thanks for sharing this - the imagery that's seemed to have gone viral the other places I surf seems to be an artist's beautiful interpretation /illustration of what the living egg/bird would have potentially looked like - and in vibrant, full colour!

aembleton• 5 years ago

Here's a larger resolution image: https://els-jbs-prod-cdn.jbs.elsevierhealth.com/cms/attachme...

dredmorbius11• 5 years ago

My first thoughts on seeing the rendering of the embryo was that 1) it looks like an embryo bird (all the more with feathers depicted), 2) that an infant or juvenile dinosaur might look and act quite birdlike, including feathers (possibly for warmth / thermal regulation, and as camouflage) and hopping, perhaps even some winglike structures and functions of arms, and if that's the case, that 3) birds evolving from dinosaurs might well be a case of neoteny --- not the evolution of new body forms and functions, but the retention of juvenile characteristics into adulthood.

And it seems I'm not the first to think so.

"How Dinosaurs Shrank and Became Birds" (2015)

Not only are birds much smaller than their dinosaur ancestors, they closely resemble dinosaur embryos. Adaptations such as these may have paved the way for modern birds’ distinguishing features, namely their ability to fly and their remarkably agile beaks. The work demonstrates how huge evolutionary changes can result from a series of small evolutionary steps.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-dinosaurs-shr...

And as Steve Brusatte is quoted in TFA:

“This little prenatal dinosaur looks just like a baby bird curled in its egg, which is yet more evidence that many features characteristic of today’s birds first evolved in their dinosaur ancestors.”

https://newatlas.com/biology/fossilized-embryo-dinosaurs-bir...

If that's the case, then it's not so much that birds evolved from dinosaurs as that birds are juvenilised dinosaurs, exhibiting characteristics which were once typical of (at least some) dinosaur species.

29athrowaway• 5 years ago

Looks like the bird ride from Golden Axe ("chicken leg").

antattack• 5 years ago

'hatch like a bird' - when millions of years are at play causation vs correlation goes out the window...

dredmorbius11• 5 years ago

The goal of simile is to afford similarity, not causality.

To the point that that's the etymology: https://www.etymonline.com/word/simile

zoomablemind• 5 years ago

This gives a strange feeling about having ... a dinosaur on a Thanksgiving table. Well, could be a table topic at least.

yongjik• 5 years ago

As depicted by this wonderful comic: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-11-08

smm11• 5 years ago

I'm sure the feathers fell off after the things hatch. All dinosaurs are feather-less.

Scientists find preserved dinosaur embryo preparing to hatch like a bird

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