Damasus, (SANA) -Hundreds of fossilised dinosaur eggs have been found by scientists in southern India in what appears to be a giant 65million-year-old nesting area.

The discovery of the eggs in the southern state of Tamil Nadu could help to unravel the mystery of how dinosaurs became extinct.

A team of geologists from Periyar University in Tamil Nadu made the find by chance on September 12 while searching for a spot to excavate in the Cauvery river basin.

As they rested by a stream they spotted several spherical objects buried in the river bed near the village of Ariyalur — an area known for its dinosaur fossils since British enthusiasts discovered them there in the 1800s.

“Upon investigation, we found these dinosaur eggs in holes,” M.U. Ramkumar, the head of the geology department at Periyar University and the leader of the team, told reporters. “Soon we found them in clusters and realised that these might have been nests.”

The team sent photographs of their find to experts at the International Dinosaur Research Centre, who confirmed that they were dinosaur eggs.

The eggs were about 13 to 20cm in diameter and lying in clusters of seven or eight in sandy nests about 1.25m (4½ft) wide spread across an area of about 2sq km, said Dr Ramkumar.

Their presence in several different layers of earth suggested that dinosaurs had repeatedly returned to the area to nest, he added.

He also said that the eggs were covered in a fine layer of volcanic dust, which may explain why they were unfertilised and unhatched — and, ultimately, why dinosaurs became extinct.

Dinosaurs are thought to have roamed the Earth for millions of years until the Cretaceous Period 65 million years ago, when most of them suddenly became extinct.

One theory is that they were killed off by a series of volcanic eruptions around what is now the Deccan Plateau in central India.

The first confirmed discovery of dinosaur egg shells is reported to have been made in France in 1859 and thousands of eggs have been found since at about 200 sites around the world, many of them in Asia.

However, there is still much scientific debate about dinosaurs’ nesting habits, especially over whether they behaved more like birds, which look after their eggs, or reptiles, which leave them to hatch alone.

Dr Ramkumar and his team called on India’s central and state governments to protect what they described as a “Jurassic treasure trove”.

Samples of the eggs have been sent to Germany for further study and the area has been cordoned off to protect it from vandals and thieves.

Initial examination suggests that the fossils belong to carnosaurs — aggressive, two-legged carnivores — and sauropods, which were docile, four-legged herbivores.

“It is an exciting find and opens up several exciting possibilities,” said Professor Arundeep Ahluwalia of Punjab University, in Chandigarh.

The area has been famous for its fossils since a British couple collected 32 boxes of “strange stone objects” there in 1843.

A British geologist first recorded finding dinosaur eggs in the area in the 1860s, and in the 1990s another egg was found in the grounds of a state-run factory there.

Scientists say that the most recent discovery appears to be the largest dinosaur nesting site ever found in the area — or in India.

Dr Ramkumar said: “It may perhaps qualify to be the largest ever known site in India in terms of area, presence of large number of eggs, egg clusters, nesting pits and repetitive occurrence of these features in various layers of the earth.”

From TIMES

Ismael Al Kazhali /Ghossoun