Une nouvelle étude suggère que, comme c'est le cas chez plusieurs espèces d'oiseaux, les dinosaures mâles (comme les troondons)protégeaint les nids et s'occupaient des petits:
In birds, the dads often shoulder some or all of the responsibility for their young. Many fathers incubate eggs, feed babies, and guard nests. This behavior is rare in other animals.
Paleontologists have known for some time that many theropods—dinos who walked on two feet and sported stumpy arms—had some form of parental care, because at nest sites, adult skeletons are often found lying on top of eggs. What gender these parents were is often a mystery, however. In some cases, the adult skeletons had their legs folded, suggesting that they were sitting, as if warming the eggs with their abdomens.
(...) Female birds in preparation for egg-laying generate extra bone tissue inside long bones like femurs. The mothers draw on these stored minerals during egg production. (...) Past research on Tyrannosaurus and Allosaurus leg bones has proven that such traces can also be seen in dinosaur females. Yet, of the brooding theropods Varricchio and his colleagues analyzed, none possessed this special bone. "The absence of this bone does not definitively prove that they are males, but it certainly suggests that these were males caring for the eggs," Varricchio said.
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