85 million-year-old eggs discovered in Argentina

Mostafa Al Zoubi, Gulf Today

Argentinian scientists have revealed the discovery of more than 160 fossilised prehistoric bird eggs at a university campus in Neuquén Province in the Patagonia region.

"We found a field containing fossilised eggs of birds whose egg size ranges between five and seven centimetres," said paleontologist Dominica Santos.

Santos explained the eggs date back to 85 million years and were discovered during renovation work at the University of La Comahue in an area dating back to the Mesozoic era, 1,100 kilometres south of Buenos Aires.

She added: "We knew there were traces of eggs, and when the work started, we found more than 160 eggs tens of metres away from the University's Museum of Natural Sciences."

Geology student Dario Julien Lopez said: “The university campus in Argentina has a large amount of fossils. The museum is also located on the university campus and we are excited to collect fossils and take them to the University Museum.”

Juan Porfieri, a scientist at the museum, said the eggs belonged to a group of birds called Enantiorniths, which were very common in the Cretaceous period, between 145 and 66 million years ago.

It is known that Argentina is rich in fossils from the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods of the Mesozoic era.

There, persons who are different from those in the northern hemisphere now have been discovered.

The most important sites of dinosaur fossils are located in Patagonia, southern Argentina, in the western provinces of La Rioja and San Juan, and in the northern province of Salta.