New oospecies of dinosaur egg from Upper Cretaceous of Jiangxi Province, China (free pdf)

[Ben Creisler <bcreisler@gmail.com>]

From: Ben Creisler
bcreisler@gmail.com


A new open access paper in Vertebrata PalAsiatica:



ZOU Song-Lin, WANG Qiang & WANG Xiao-Lin (2013)
A new oospecies of parafaveoloolithids from the Pingxiang Basin,
Jiangxi Province of China.
Vertebrata PalAsiatica 51(2):  102-106
http://www.ivpp.cas.cn/cbw/gjzdwxb/xbwzxz/201305/P020130507384709566030.pdf


Upper Cretaceous dinosaur egg clutches, single eggs, and countless
eggshell fragments have been found in the Pingxiang Basin, Jiangxi
Province since 2002. In this paper, the specimens described from the
Pingxiang Basin are oblate in shape. The polar axis of this egg is
7.32 cm, the equatorial diameter is 13.81 cm, and its shape index is
189. Outer surface is smooth. Eggshell is usually composed of three or
􀂿ve superimposed slender shell units. In some portions, 6-10 shell
units are assembled in the middle and upper part of the eggshell.
Pores are straight and unbranching, extremely numerous, and closely
spaced, looking as a whole like a honeycomb in tangential section
through the middle part of the eggshell. Compared to the members of
faveoloolithids, the specimens described here should be ascribed to
the oogenus Parafaveoloolithus on the basis of some shell units
tending to assemble in the middle and upper part of the eggshell.
However, the difference is remarkable between the new specimen and the
known oospecies, Parafaveoloolithus microporus, P. macroporus, P.
tiansicunensis and P. guoqingsiensis, of which the eggshell has
usually two or three shell units tending to assemble in the middle
part of the eggshell.Therefore, the specimens described here represent
a new oospecies, Prafaveoloolithus pingxiangensis oosp. nov.