Scientists of University of Alberta recently said that a dinosaur couple called ‘Romeo and Juliet‘
now, has been found buried beneath the Mongolia-based Gobi Desert for
over 75 million years. According to the Alberta University
palaeontologists, this is the mated pair and was preserved for the
aforementioned duration alongside each other. These two raptors died and
buried side by side, have found to be dead because of a huge sand dune
collapsing on them.
The
scientists do not know the sex of these oviraptors yet because
according to Scott Persons, the research’s lead author, it is highly
intricate to determine the gender of a dinosaur. This is so because soft
anatomy does not fossilises easily. This is the reason that the fossil
of a dinosaur does not easily provide any direct reference to the gender
of it.
In
2011, Scott Persons, along with this team of researchers had published
their findings regarding the oviraptors’ tails. Despite being strictly
land-bound, these dinosaurs had long features that rested on the tails.
This raised a valid question that what was the objective of these
features of the tail when oviraptors were land-bound?
Persons,
in this context, explain that the theory stated that the purpose of
these feature fans was same like the modern ground-based birds, such as
prairie chickens, peacocks and turkeys. These feature fans were used for
enhancing the display of courtship.
After
carefully observing the specimen of these recently discovered oviraptor
specimens, the new study established about the sexual dimorphism.
Persons
says that, even though, both these specimens are of the same age, have
same size and are more or less similar in all regards of anatomy, but
‘Romeo’ encompasses specially-shaped and larger tail bones. According to
him, these two may be the mated pair, thereby making for the romantic
story because they were preserved alongside for over 75 million years.
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