China Just Found A Bunch Of Dinosaur Egg Fossils

In a city situated in Guangdong province in China, unsuspecting construction workers found 43 dinosaur egg fossils earlier this month while carrying out road repairs. The construction crew was working on a road upgrade in the southeastern city of Heyuan when they stumbled upon the nest of fossilized dinosaur eggs, 19 of which were completely intact.

Du Yanli, director of the city's dinosaur museum, told local media that the eggs are currently at the museum for security and research purposes. Du added that the eggs' dinosaur species were still unknown, but elaborated slightly on their makeup:

These eggs are large in size, and one even has a diameter of 13 centimeters [or five inches].

Du also said that the road and sewage system update led to the incidental unearthing of the fossils:

There are fossilised dinosaur eggs everywhere in the red sandstone layer but they were never found because the city was built on top of the layers. With the recent road and sewage system upgrade, the red sandstone layer is being exposed and has led to the discovery of the fossils.

One construction worker allegedly attempted to flee the site with two of the fossils, but according to the Daily Mail, passersby stopped him and formed a human chain around the site until the police arrived to bring the fossils to the museum.

The city seems to be chock-full of dinosaur egg fossils. Their abundance has led locals to affectionately dub Heyuan "The Home of Dinosaurs," and the dinosaur species Heyuannia huangi has been named after the city.

The South China Morning Post reported that local officials said some 17,000 fragments of dinosaur egg fossils have been found in the area since the mid-1990s, when the first of many discoveries was made. According to state media, children playing near a construction site in 1995 discovered what they thought were stones, but later turned out to be dinosaur egg fossils.

This latest discovery, according to the South China Morning Post, is the first of its kind in the city's central area. Xinhua News reported that Heyuan entered the Guinness Book of World Records in 2005 with 10,008 dinosaur egg fossils, the largest collection in the world.

Officials indicated that as unusual a find as this may have been, there may be more egg fossils. Du told residents to inform the municipal government if any of them happened to find more such fossils. According to the International Business Times, a majority of the fossilized eggs found in China are from the late Cretaceous period of 65 to 100 million years ago.