Western North America, late Cretaceous, ca. 100 to 65 million years ago. A pair of round fossilized eggs preserved in their original matrix, which is deep red compacted sandstone, from a member of the hadrosaur family (Hadrosauridae). The Hadrosaurids are also known as the duck-billed dinosaurs, a herbivorous type of animal and a facultative biped, meaning that they walked on two legs when young and four when adults. They had large jaws with multiple rows of teeth for grinding plants. They had large noses; some of them also had crests atop their heads whose use is still unknown: maybe to attract mates, scare away predators by appearing large, or make trumpeting sounds. Hadrosaurs were scaled, not feathered, based on skin impressions. We think that they were muscular animals who could have outrun contemporary predators, like Tyrannosaurus Rex. They were also large - roughly 30 feet long (9.2 m) and weighing up to three tons. Size: 8.25" W x 4.2" H (21 cm x 10.7 cm)

There are several important sandstone formations from the North American Cretaceous that are east of Rocky Mountains, the result of the shoreline of a great interior sea called the Late Cretaceous Interior Seaway. This interstitial zone between the nascent Rockies and the Seaway, where dinosaurs grazed and hunted along the shoreline, is one of our most fertile fossil-finding grounds, and many of our beloved dinosaur species originated in discoveries from this area. This location is famous for its hadrosaur finds, including the discovery of baby hadrosaurs and nesting sites in the early 1990s. These helped revolutionize thinking about dinosaurs, shifting them away from the old view as uncaring lizards to the currently accepted view of more bird-like creatures who lived in family units.

Provenance: A Coin Exchange, Tarzana, California, USA

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#145989

Small losses to surface as shown. A few small areas of stabilization with glue where the egg shell meets the matrix.