Poor, poor Oviraptor

[IsaacTheFossilMan]

Anyone here remember in their childhood being taught that Oviraptor (egg-thief) stole dinosaurs' eggs, and ate them? Same here. As most of you will know, it turns out, this dino was no criminal, it was just trying to be a good parent, brooding over it's eggs! Here's the fossil that led to it's misidentification:

You can see how it was speculated to have been stealing the eggs, but, based on other specimen covering their own nests, and CT scans that showed an embryonic Oviraptor inside the eggs... It was being a good momma, protecting it's young from the sandstorm that buried both it and the eggs.

So, case closed? Oviraptor, this weird birdy dino, was in fact just a good mom! No need for any further issues with it's diet and things, right?
Well, unfortunately for this creature, the original speculation has left behind quite a legacy... It only takes a quick google search to show up lots of outdated, and misinformed data on websites! My siblings, and parents, still believed it to have predated on eggs, as well as all of my friends! Granted, they are not well versed on the palaeo scene (peasants!), but, still, it's weird that children's books on dinos still state this to be the case. For example, from Oviraptor - Official ARK: Survival Evolved Wiki (gamepedia.com) (the game wiki on a dinosaur game called ARK): 

Quote

The Oviraptor is a small theropod that can often be spotted by survivors wandering across the island in search of its favorite food, eggs.

On the actual UK Natural History Museum (Oviraptor | Natural History Museum (nhm.ac.uk)):


Will this beautiful beastie ever leave behind it's disgraceful legacy? Maybe not, it's hard to say. Poor, poor Oviraptor!

[Tidgy's Dad]

I think its legacy is going to be pretty hard to shake considering it will always be called Oviraptor - egg thief. If it did eat fruit, then  Fructiraptor would be better.

[IsaacTheFossilMan]

16 minutes ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

I think its legacy is going to be pretty hard to shake considering it will always be called Oviraptor - egg thief. If it did eat fruit, then  Fructiraptor would be better.

Very true, but renaming is incredibly unlikely. Thanks for reading!

[-Andy-]

I think the ironic thing was how its jaw morphology helped shape the narrative that it was an egg-eater

[IsaacTheFossilMan]

47 minutes ago, -Andy- said:

I think the ironic thing was how its jaw morphology helped shape the narrative that it was an egg-eater

Yeah, exactly. And the shape of its beak lending itself to breaking shells...

[Randyw]

Here’s the thing.... most things will eat an egg if it comes across it. Chickens will even eat eggs.... Even butterflies will if they come across a broken one. So there’s nothing to really say they didn’t occasionally snag an egg.....

[IsaacTheFossilMan]

4 hours ago, Randyw said:

Here’s the thing.... most things will eat an egg if it comes across it. Chickens will even eat eggs.... Even butterflies will if they come across a broken one. So there’s nothing to really say they didn’t occasionally snag an egg.....

That's true, but them seeking out eggs seems to be more fantasy than reality!

[FossilNerd]

I think situations like this show a couple of things. 
 

One... Science is ever evolving. It’s especially true in the paleo disciplines. Next week we may be back to again thinking that Oviraptor did steal eggs. That’s one of the reasons I love paleontology. Keeps me on my toes!
 

Two... Humans are resistant to change. In the minds of the general public, once something is labeled as fact it can’t be changed, or at least takes a long time to be.
 

Since we are talking about dinosaurs. The Brontosaurus comes to mind. It was the poster child for the “long neck” dinosaurs when I was a kid. Then it was realized that the type specimen was most likely an Apatosaurus. The poor Brontosaurus, loved by kids everywhere, was gone in the blink of an eye, yet most of the general public never knew it. I myself didn’t know until I started delving into the world of fossils.

 

I’m not as up on my dino knowledge as I am about other fossils, but now I read that there may be a few species of Brontosaurus still out there. Gen-Xers everywhere rejoice! 

[IsaacTheFossilMan]

On 15/02/2021 at 1:21 AM, FossilNerd said:

I think situations like this show a couple of things. 
 

One... Science is ever evolving. It’s especially true in the paleo disciplines. Next week we may be back to again thinking that Oviraptor did steal eggs. That’s one of the reasons I love paleontology. Keeps me on my toes!
 

Two... Humans are resistant to change. In the minds of the general public, once something is labeled as fact it can’t be changed, or at least takes a long time to be.
 

Since we are talking about dinosaurs. The Brontosaurus comes to mind. It was the poster child for the “long neck” dinosaurs when I was a kid. Then it was realized that the type specimen was most likely an Apatosaurus. The poor Brontosaurus, loved by kids everywhere, was gone in the blink of an eye, yet most of the general public never knew it. I myself didn’t know until I started delving into the world of fossils.

 

I’m not as up on my dino knowledge as I am about other fossils, but now I read that there may be a few species of Brontosaurus still out there. Gen-Xers everywhere rejoice! 

Very true, it is ever-changing. Not sure why I didn't see this reply, sorry! I could've sworn Brontie was recently redefined as different to Apatosaurus? I think originally people were like, oh look, new dino, name it "brontosaurus", and then other people went, "nah, that's an apatosaurus", and then more recently, they were like "ohhhh, it is different". Bit of an oversimplification, but, after googling it, I am right. Taken from Wikipedia - "although the type species, B. excelsus, had long been considered a species of the closely related Apatosaurus, researchers proposed in 2015 that Brontosaurus is a genus separate from Apatosaurus and that it contains three species: B. excelsus, B. yahnahpin, and B. parvus."

 

[jpc]

The photo posted in the OP is NOT the original Oviraptor blamed for stealing eggs.  That specimen (AMNH6517) is not as beautifully preserved and in a different position.

 

Here is the link to the paper (including drawing of the original Oviraptor specimen):

 

https://digitallibrary.amnh.org/bitstream/handle/2246/3223//v2/dspace/ingest/pdfSource/nov/N0144.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Oddly enough, even in this original paper, Osborn admits that it may not be actually stealing the eggs. 

 

Oviraptors were accused of stealing eggs because in the 1920's when Roy Chapman Andrews first started exploring Mongolia, looking for the cradle of humanity (not found), his teams found tons of Protoceratops skeletons, and lots of eggs like in the OP's photo.  One Oviraptor was even found with some of these eggs, (arguably, 'with' not 'atop').  It was assumed that it was stealing them because the eggs are so common (like Protoceratops bones), and Oviraptor bones are not at all common, so the eggs must be Protoceratops eggs.  It wasn't until the 1980's when AMNH teams returned to Mongolia and found a few other nice specimens atop a clutch of eggs that the truth (as it were) came out.  This specimen above is one of those specimens.  I was talking to one of the AMNH team members a few decades ago and she told me that in the first beautifully brooding specimen they found, there is a huge tool-mark of discovery in the eggs under it because no one expected to finds eggs under it.  

[Randyw]

I find it interesting that in the description it’s listed as a herbivorous or ovivotous and in the section about it they mention the name is misleading. Sounds to me like even back then they suspected it wasnt strictly an egg thief.

[IsaacTheFossilMan]

3 hours ago, jpc said:

The photo posted in the OP is NOT the original Oviraptor blamed for stealing eggs.  That specimen (AMNH6517) is not as beautifully preserved and in a different position.

 

Here is the link to the paper (including drawing of the original Oviraptor specimen):

 

https://digitallibrary.amnh.org/bitstream/handle/2246/3223//v2/dspace/ingest/pdfSource/nov/N0144.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Oddly enough, even in this original paper, Osborn admits that it may not be actually stealing the eggs. 

 

Oviraptors were accused of stealing eggs because in the 1920's when Roy Chapman Andrews first started exploring Mongolia, looking for the cradle of humanity (not found), his teams found tons of Protoceratops skeletons, and lots of eggs like in the OP's photo.  One Oviraptor was even found with some of these eggs, (arguably, 'with' not 'atop').  It was assumed that it was stealing them because the eggs are so common (like Protoceratops bones), and Oviraptor bones are not at all common, so the eggs must be Protoceratops eggs.  It wasn't until the 1980's when AMNH teams returned to Mongolia and found a few other nice specimens atop a clutch of eggs that the truth (as it were) came out.  This specimen above is one of those specimens.  I was talking to one of the AMNH team members a few decades ago and she told me that in the first beautifully brooding specimen they found, there is a huge tool-mark of discovery in the eggs under it because no one expected to finds eggs under it.  

Oh oops... I was clickbaited by a media stream! Totally my bad, lemme change the post... Thanks for the heads up!

[IsaacTheFossilMan]

Ahhh, I can't edit it as it's old, but, here is the actual original fossil, I believe, after doing a lot more research:

 

Also, on the other image I put before, significant work had been done to the neck and the head. I believe they were completely eroded before. Thanks again @jpc

 

[jpc]

5 hours ago, IsaacTheFossilMan said:

Ahhh, I can't edit it as it's old, but, here is the actual original fossil, I believe, after doing a lot more research:

 

Also, on the other image I put before, significant work had been done to the neck and the head. I believe they were completely eroded before. Thanks again @jpc

 

yes, and the wounded egg(?) is/are in the bottom right hand portion, but I can't remember which ones.