Dinosaur ‘Babysitter’

Published: 3rd Sep 2014

 A nest of baby dinosaurs has been discovered with what is very possibly a young ‘babysitter’ sitting on top of the nest. The dicovery of 24 skeletons of baby dinosaurs known as Psittacosaurs and an older individual, suggesting a caretaker was "babysitting" the nestling dinosaurs. The fossil dinoasur nest dates back  120 million years to the Early Cretaceous period.

The oldest known dinosaur nest sites are 190 million years old, and their existence suggests that even the earliest dinosaurs probably exhibited some form of complex family behaviour. The occurance of such sites indicates indicates how sociable these prehistoric reptiles probably were.

Psittacosaurus means "parrot lizard" and it was a small, very primitive ceratopsian dinosaur. It was a speedy herbivorous  dinosaur and had a narrow, horny beak with no teeth, and cheek teeth towards the rear of the mouth. Psittacosaurus had a boxy skull with short, horn-like projections on the cheeks.

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