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Hadrosaur eggs - crack the timing riddle?


mr.rod

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Hello all,

 

I have a question wrt age of the eggs, and to know which genus and oogenus this might be.

Before, here, I had posted a lot of photos and a video but somehow they are mostly gone, so I will repost the video.

 

What I have from the seller

  • Hadrosauridae family, possibly Saurolophus genus
  • Possibly Dendroolithus oogenus
  • 80 mio. year old, Cenomanian, Late Cretaceous
  • Egg size 10.5 to 12cm (4 to 4.5"), about 8-9kg (18lbs)
  • Xixia Basin, Henan province, China

 

Now come the contradictions of the above given data

  • Hadrosauridae: 86–66 Ma (mio. years ago) --> Santonian-Maastrichtian (2)
  • Saurolophus: 70–66 Ma --> Maastrichtian (3)
  • "80 mio. year old" --> Campanian
  • "Cenomanian" <-- 100.5-93.9 Ma
  • Dendroolithus: 99–66 Ma --> complete Late Cretaceous (1,4)
  • Most websites state those kind of eggs are from 80-70 or 84-71 Ma --> Santonian-Maastrichtian (1,5,6,7)
  • On an online auction site, I found 70-65 Ma --> Maastrichtian (8)
  • ScienceDirect states Dendroolithus oogenus from Xixia Basin are 96-83 Ma -->  Cenomanian-Santonian (9)
  • Could potentially be from Gaogou Formation, Majiacun Formation, or Sigou Formation (10,11,12)

 

image.png.2a8f01feca82b901ecaf1f11dfb227ff.png

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Cretaceous)

 

So, all this does not fit together really well, does it?

As Hadrosauridae lived during Santonian-Maastrichtian, 86–66 Ma,  everything older should be ruled out, correct?

Thus, if ScienceDirect is right, we should be within 86-83 Ma, which is Santonian.

If so, most websites (5,6,7,8 & of my seller) are wrong, plus, it ain't be Saurolophus.

 

==} Can anyone explain this?

 

References

  1. https://digsfossils.com/fossils/china_eggs.html
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadrosauridae
  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saurolophus
  4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendroolithus
  5. http://www.online fossil retailer.com/Stonerelic/vertebrates/EH015/EH015.htm
  6. https://www.jurassic-dreams.com/products/30116-huge-and-nicely-preserved-hadrosaurus-egg-in-matrix-kaoguo-fm-cretaceous-china-fossil-for-sale
  7. https://www.buriedtreasurefossils.com/hadrosaur-egg.html
  8. https://www.online auction site.com/zh-Hant/l/28862073-nest-of-10-hadrosaur-eggs-plus-3-imprints-all-original-no-restoration-69-x-44-cm
  9. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1002007109002949?via%3Dihub
  10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaogou_Formation
  11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majiacun_Formation
  12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigou_Formation

 

Update 1: video doesn't play any more in the browser. Will upload photos and fix the video.

 

Sauriereier aus China 1b.jpg

Sauriereier aus China 2b.jpg

Edited by mr.rod
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Posted (edited)

(Thanks mods to support me.  Please tell me if I should edit anything.

Have been researching until 2am as this riddle couldn't let me go to bed.)

Edited by mr.rod
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Not my area of expertise, but have patience and the right person will eventually see this and respond. It may take awhile as members are not on the forum 24/7. 

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Dipleurawhisperer5.jpg          MOTM.png.61350469b02f439fd4d5d77c2c69da85.png

I like Trilo-butts and I cannot lie.

 

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Sorry, not my expertise nether, but I would question same things as always.

 

Is exact location and formation known?

Is seller familiar with location and its fauna?

How much assumptions or quessing is made?

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There's no such thing as too many teeth.

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Have asked the seller but he will probably state again he just got them from an old collection. It's a quite good, well-known and well-established seller, so I trust he tells the truth of what he knows.

On the other hand, he still offers similar eggs with the same meta data, and so do many other sellers - but the data is just not consistent, nowhere. So most sellers should be interested to crack the riddle. As an analogy, no well-renowned seller wants to sell a banana and state it's from Alaska or Norway.

Edited by mr.rod
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Far less discussion on sellers, and more about the specimen in question, please.

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...How to Philosophize with a Hammer

 

 

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Please dont try to work out the "science" behind purchased fossils.  As already stated,  you can never find out where they come from, the formation, the age, or even if they were legally exported (let alone if they are real).  Treat them like art.  If you want to buy it and display it in your home, thanks fine.  Just don't try to assign any information to it.

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"There is no shortage of fossils. There is only a shortage of paleontologists to study them." - Larry Martin

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Well, with all respect, I'd love to know more about my fossil, that's why I'm asking.

Also I feel it might help many here to solve this riddle as someone might have put a wrong info on the Internet some years ago, and the same wrong info is copied again and again. So wrong information is being shared and trusted on.

For me at least, it's interesting if my fossil is 65 or 100 million years old. Maybe someone else has less interest.

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1 hour ago, mr.rod said:

Well, with all respect, I'd love to know more about my fossil, that's why I'm asking.

Also I feel it might help many here to solve this riddle as someone might have put a wrong info on the Internet some years ago, and the same wrong info is copied again and again. So wrong information is being shared and trusted on.

For me at least, it's interesting if my fossil is 65 or 100 million years old. Maybe someone else has less interest.

 

No, this is the place where we are ALL interested in the information.  The problem is that you CAN NOT TRUST what an internet seller is telling you.  You especially can't trust a seller who didnt personally find it. You absolutely can't trust a seller when the fossil has a real likely hood of being illegally smuggled out of a country.    There are so many fakes being produced in places like China and Morocco, sold to dealers by the pound, who turn around and swear that they are real and call them whatever they think will sell for the highest price.    

Lastly, if you want REAL information about particular species, look up the research papers that have been published on them.  Stay away from garbage like wiki and blog sites.  

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"There is no shortage of fossils. There is only a shortage of paleontologists to study them." - Larry Martin

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Sorry but Im afraid there is not enough information.

Even with exact locality, it might be too hard to id egg to genus or species and I think it might not be wise.

 

I see no information about Saurolophus in Xixia region, but mostly from US, Mongolia and China's Heilongjiang region.

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There's no such thing as too many teeth.

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This might not be the answer you want but I will offer my 2 cents

 

I labelled my hadrosaur egg like this:

 

Hadrosaur egg (unhatched)

Dendroolithus sp.

96 – 88 mya | late Cretaceous

?Gaogou Formation / ?Majiacun Formation

?Xixia Basin, Henan

 

---

 

However, I am aware this does not stand up to scrutiny from a museum or a paleontologist. Unlike fossils like Green River fish or a Kem Kem Group spino tooth, fossil eggs are notoriously hard to identify (requiring a cross section scan), and their locality info is also highly suspect. There is a lot of guess work involving them. Hence, these labels are only good for the average collector or dealer, but I will never pass them off as an academically-correct label

 

Still, a label where you note the potential inaccuracy is better than no label, so long as you aren't trying to scam anyone

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Looking forward to meeting my fellow Singaporean collectors! Do PM me if you are a Singaporean, or an overseas fossil-collector coming here for a holiday!

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