Massospondylus, Oldest Dinosaur Nest Ever Found In South Africa

A nursery containing clutches of dinosaur eggs up to 190 million years old has been discovered in South Africa’s Golden Gate Highlands National Park.

The fossils are of the prosauropod Massospondylus, which is a relative of the Diplodocus, the BBC reported.

The discovery is 100 million years older than any nesting ground ever found before.

Many of the nests of fossilised eggs contain embryos and tiny footprints of hatchlings around them reveal the baby dinosaurs stayed in their nests until they had doubled in size.

The find suggests the creatures were caring mothers, according to the Guardian.

Dr David Evans, at the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada, said: “This amazing series of 190million-year-old nests gives us the first detailed look at dinosaur reproduction early in their evolutionary history, and documents the antiquity of nesting strategies that are only know much later in the dinosaur record.”