Dinosaur fossil found sitting on eggs in a nest reveals well-developed parental care A multinational team recently announced a fossil dinosaur discovery in China that provides new evidence of advanced parental care among at least one group of the earth’s once dominant vertebrate animals. The fossil, dating to 70 million years ago, during the Cretaceous Period, which ended with the mass dinosaur extinction, consists of the partially preserved remains of an oviraptorosaur, a feathered, theropod dinosaur lineage tangentially related to those that eventually gave rise to modern birds. Of especial interest is that this animal appears to have been sitting on a brood of at least two dozen eggs. Examination of the embryos preserved in at least seven of the eggs confirmed that they belong to the same group as the adult, strongly implying that the latter was a parent sitting on a nest incubating its offspring.