"The significance of this discovery is that we have found the oldest known dinosaur embryos in the world, which date back about 190 million years," said Mike Raath, curator at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
"It is also the oldest known embryo of any terrestrial animal, pushing back the boundary by about 100 million years, as the oldest known recognizable embryos date back about 90 million years," Raath told a press conference at the university.
The embryos were identified as being those of
Massospondylus carinatus, an early dinosaur with a small head, long neck and a long tail that grew to a length of some five meters (16.5 feet).
The dinosaur roamed the plains of South Africa during the early Jurassic period, feeding mainly on plants or breaking open termite mounds with its claws.
The journey of this discovery dates back nearly 30 years when a cluster of seven eggs was found by South African paleontological legend James Kitching around 1977 next to a new road at Golden Gate National Park in central South Africa.
Raath said the fossils were "lying on the shelf" at Wits University as there was nobody with the training and skill to remove the rock from the eggs and embryos, which are only a few centimeters long.
