KITCHING, 1979, REISZ, SCOTT, SUES, EVANS & RAATH, 2005

Locality: Rooidraai (Red Bend), in the Golden Gate Highlands National Park, 17 km east of Clarens, Free (Orange Free) State, South Africa.

Horizon: Upper Elliot Formation.

Biostratigraphy:

Age: Hettangian-Lower Sinemurian Stage, Lower Lias Epoch, Early Jurassic.

Material:

BP/1/534/7b: 6 eggs containing fetal skeletons.

BP/1/5347A: Embryo skull and skeleton.

Note: Massospondylus sp?
Note: Mikhailov, 1997 states…A clutch of six subspherical eggs with mineralized shells was collected from the Late Triassic Elliot Formation at Rooidrai, South Africa (Kitching 1979). Poorly preserved remnants of embryos found in three of the six eggs permitted the certain assignment of these eggs to dinosaurs. Skeletal remains of the cynodont Tritylodon, the thecodontian Clarencea and the prosauropod Massospondylus are known from the same locality. Initially, Kitching did not attribute the eggs to any particular dinosaurian taxon, but later they were assigned to Massospondylus as they were considered ‘too large for Clarencea’ (Grine and Kitcing 1987, p. 616). It is necessary to stress here that egg size 55 X 65 mm) and shell thickness (0.5 mm) are fare below the range of any known sauropod and ornithopod eggshell. The eggshell structure (Grine and Kitching 1987, text-figs 20-23) is very strange and possibly altered. It is obviously different from that of the sauropods known from southern Europe, India and South America (Megaloolithidae and a similar undescribed oofamily), and from Central Asia (Faveoloolithidae), as well as from any ornithoid and crocodiloid eggshell.
Note: ZELENITSKY & MODESTO, 2002 confurm that these eggs to belong to the dinosauria and the crocodilian eggshell structure is due to diagenesis.