PROVINCIA DE HUESCA – An international team of archaeologists has found 30 eggs of titanosaurs dinosaurs in a two-ton rock in Loarre (Huesca). Furthermore, the eggs will be on display at a Laboratory-Museum in the city of Zaragoza from next year.
Moreover, the experts estimate there could be up to 70 more in the rock. Titanosaurus was a long-necked sauropod that lived 66 million years ago until its extinction in the Cretaceous Period. Preliminary tests indicate that the nests belong to the titanosaur. This is a four-legged herbivore with a long tail and a neck that can grow up to 20 metres long.
The team of paleontologists led by the Aragosaurus-IUCA Group of the University of Zaragoza conducted the discovery in collaboration with the Nova University of Lisbon (Portugal). Miguel Moreno-Azanza, Carmen Núñez-Lahuerta, and Eduardo Puértolas lead 25 paleontologists and students from Spanish, Portuguese, and German institutions in the project.
Moreno-Azanza, of the Nova University of Lisbon, indicated two nests have been excavated in 2020. And, furthermore, around 30 eggs have been discovered in the rock. “The main objective of the 2021 campaign was to extract a large nest. This contained at least 12 eggs embedded in a rock weighing more than two tons,” he said. “A total of five people worked eight hours a day for 50 days to remove the nest. This was eventually removed using a backhoe.”
Egg replicas
Moreno-Azanza has indicated in the newspaper El Confidencial that these and ten other stones will be exhibited in the future Laboratory-Museum. “The space is expected to open its doors to visitors next spring. They can then personally follow the process of preparing and studying the fossils from this site.”
Museum
“The museum will have two exhibition rooms where the methodology of a complex paleontological excavation will be explained.” The exhibition will be organized in a satellite room of the Museum of Natural Sciences of the University of Zaragoza. Replicas of dinosaur eggs from other parts of the world are then displayed here. Moreno-Azanza also reported that the Dinosaur Eggs project has received funding for the next three years.
