In Madhya Pradesh’s Dhar, what initially seen as palm-sized “stone balls” were later identified by a group of experts as fossilised dinosaur eggs.
Vesta Mandaloi (40) from Padlya village had been venerating these objects as “Kakar Bhairav”, in accordance with his ancestors’ belief that the “kuldevta” (totem) would safeguard his farmland and livestock from difficulties and misfortunes, a Times of India report said.
Many others, like Mandaloi, worshipped similar findings discovered during an excavation in Dhar and neighbouring districts.
It was during a recent field visit by experts from Lucknow’s Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences that residents discovered the “balls” they had been venerating were fossilised eggs of the Titanosaurus species of dinosaurs.
In January this year, palaeontologists discovered closely situated dinosaur nests and 256 eggs belonging to herbivorous titanosaurs in the Narmada Valley, Madhya Pradesh.
Additionally, researchers from Delhi University and the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in Mohanpur-Kolkata and Bhopal have documented the discovery of ovum-in-ovo or multi-shell eggs in the Bagh and Kukshi regions of Dhar district.
The findings were also published in the PLoS One research journal by authors including Harsha Dhiman, Vishal Verma, and Guntupalli Prasad. An examination of the nests and eggs provided detailed insights into the lives of the long-necked sauropods that inhabited the region over 66 million years ago.
“The eggs were found from the estuary formed at a place where the Tethys Sea merged with the Narmada when Seychelles had broken away from the Indian plate. The separation of Seychelles had led to the incursion of the Tethys Sea 400 kms inside the Narmada Valley,” Verma told news agency PTI.
It was the first time, according to the researchers, that a multi-shell egg of a reptile has been discovered in the world. They said that this discovery could establish similarities between birds and reptiles, and their nesting habits.
