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A fish-eating reptile called Dinocephalosaurus, which lived about 245 million years ago during the Triassic Period, is pictured in this artist's reconstruction handout image showing the rough position of the embryo within the mother. An unusually long-necked marine reptile gave birth to live young 245 million years ago – the only known member of the dinosaur, bird and croc family to not lay eggs, researchers said Tuesday. Archaeologists examining the fossil of a female Dinocephalosaurus from Yunnan Province, southwest China, were amazed to discover the remains of a baby among the bones where her abdomen would have been. Dinocephalosaurus was a member of the archosaur family, which includes extinct dinosaurs as well as today’s birds and crocodiles – all egg-layers. Live birth is usually associated with mammals, and egg-laying is considered the original, “primitive” state of animals. Dinocephalosaurus was a strange-looking ocean-dweller with a neck almost twice the length of its trunk – some 3-4 meters (10-13 feet) in total. It was a fish eater, snaking its long neck from side to side to catch prey. The baby Dinocephalosaurus, or what remained of it, was about a tenth of the mother’s size. The new study pushes fossil evidence for the reproductive biology of archosaurs back by 50 million years, to the Middle Triassic, said the study. (Photo by Dinghua Yang/Reuters)
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