Chiappe Luis M, Codorniú Laura, Grellet-Tinner Gerald, Rivarola David
Department of Vertebrate Paleontology, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, California 90007, USA.
Nature. 2004 Dec 2;432(7017):571-2. doi: 10.1038/432571a.
Our knowledge of the eggs and embryos of pterosaurs, the Mesozoic flying reptiles, is sparse. Until now, the recent discovery of an ornithocheirid embryo from 121-million-year-old rocks in China constituted the only reliable evidence of an unhatched pterosaur. Here we describe an embryonic fossil of a different pterosaur from the Early Cretaceous lacustrine deposits of Loma del Pterodaustro (the Lagarcito Formation, which is about 100 million years old) in central Argentina. This new fossil provides insight into the eggshell morphology, early growth and nesting environments of pterosaurs.
我们对中生代会飞的爬行动物翼龙的蛋和胚胎的了解非常稀少。直到现在，在中国发现的来自1.21亿年前岩石中的鸟掌翼龙胚胎是未孵化翼龙的唯一可靠证据。在此，我们描述了一种来自阿根廷中部洛马德尔翼龙（拉加西托组，约1亿年历史）早白垩世湖相沉积的不同翼龙的胚胎化石。这块新化石让我们得以深入了解翼龙的蛋壳形态、早期生长及筑巢环境。
