PZ Myers. 2004 Sep 09. Psittacosaurus tragedy. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/psittacosaurus_tragedy/>. Accessed 2008 Dec 01.

Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Thursday, September 09, 2004

Psittacosaurus tragedy

Here's a spectacular fossil assemblage from the Lower Cretaceous of China, a single adult Psittacosaurus surrounded by 34 juveniles, all in a 0.5m2 area.

psittacosaurus fossils
Adult and juvenile Psittacosaurus in plan view. Erosion has truncated several skeletons, including the adult, on the left and upper sides of the specimen. Skeletons in the centre sit topographically lower than those at the perimeter, suggesting an original basin-like feature. One skeleton at lower right appears to be draped over an edge of this structure. The absence of internal sedimentary structures makes it impossible to discern whether the basin topography is the result of sedimentary, biological or post-depositional deformational processes. Juveniles not adjacent to the adult generally lie subparallel to one another, showing no preferred orientation of the cranial end. Sediment texture and composition do not vary across the site, eliminating the possibility of a composite specimen. Scale bar, 10 cm.

That's a lot of baby dinosaurs all in one place, and the authors conclude that this is pretty good evidence of extensive parental care in this species—and that they all died very abruptly.

Meng Q, Liu J, Varricchio DJ, Huang T, Gao C (2004) Parental care in an ornithischian dinosaur. Nature 431:145-146.

Posted by PZ Myers on 09/09 at 11:37 PM
Science • EvoDevo • Organisms • 0 Trackbacks • Other weblogs • Permalink
  1. Whoa... faaascinating...
    #: Posted by Ben  on  09/10  at  02:42 AM
  2. <fallacy type="YEC">
    A family of dinosaurs died abruptly in a catastrophe therefore the Noachian Deluge actually happened.
    </fallacy>

    You know it is coming...

    --
    Anti-spam: replace "username" with "harlequin2"
    #: Posted by  on  09/10  at  07:18 AM
  3. Yeah, or "It's an early caveman's uneaten dinosaur egg soup!"
    #: Posted by Ben  on  09/10  at  07:38 AM
  4. Maybe a dinosaur Who concert? See if there's an Exit sign anywhere nearby.
    #: Posted by Linus  on  09/10  at  09:56 AM
  5. Re: The use of the word "tragedy" to describe the apparently sudden event that killed this nestful of baby dinos.

    I had a strong reaction some years back while visiting the La Brea Tar Pits in southern California. They had this wonderfully weird window you could peer through and see a full-sized sabertooth skeleton, which would slowly, through tricks with lights and mirrors, turn into a life-sized three-dimensional recreation of the critter as it looked in life.

    To an interested layman like me, all these fossils and bones are usually just fossils and bones, but in that moment, I saw THIS set of bones as a formerly-living, magnificent beast. Trapped and dying slowly. And maybe, in my imagination, the final straw that tipped the species into extinction.

    It really choked me up.
    #: Posted by Hank Fox  on  09/10  at  10:23 AM
  6. I have to admit that while I appreciated the science of the discovery I also felt a bit sad seeing all the young ones wiped away like that. Odd bit of emotional/rational disequilibration.
    #: Posted by  on  09/10  at  10:57 AM
  7. In case anyone's wondering, this is what a living psittacosaur might have looked like:

    #: Posted by PZ Myers  on  09/10  at  12:11 PM
  8. There are no words to describe just how spectacular this find is. I was reminded of Edvard Munch's "The Scream," especially by the little critter hanging over the edge of the nest area. Nice, too, to have the picture of what a living psittacosaur might have looked like. The business end is quite impressive!
    #: Posted by  on  09/10  at  01:46 PM
  9. I have a new desktop image!

    Incidentally, having just recently returned from a US holiday, I realised I'd not checked Pharyngula, normally one of my daily stop-ins, since mid-July. Oh man, are you trying to KILL me, PZ?
    #: Posted by  on  09/11  at  08:00 AM
  10. Beginning in 1980 with the dinosaur/asteroid controversy, it has more recently become popular for geologists to consider not just local, but global catastrophes to account for the geologic evidence they see. One can be assured that for a community to have made such an incredible shift–in spite of the strong association which exists between catastrophism and creationism–there must be profound evidence for catastrophe throughout the geologic column. ~ Kurt Wise
    #: Posted by bevets  on  09/11  at  09:49 AM