Wednesday, June 17, 2020

Shell Shock

Nature magazine reports that palaeontologists may have cracked the egg-laying behavior of several prehistoric amniotes.  Rather than hard, at least some terrestrial dinosaur eggs may have been soft-shelled, while it now appears possible that some prehistoric marine "reptiles" (pardon the paraphyly) laid their eggs on land.  Such paradigm shifts foul the nests of prior hypotheses.