Dinosaur reproduction Dinosaur reproduction Dinosaur reproduction was relevant to archosaur physiology, with newborns hatching from eggs. Dinosaurs did not nurture their offspring as mammals typically do, and because dinosaurs did not nurse, it is likely that most dinosaurs were capable of surviving on their own after hatching. A discovery of features in a "Tyrannosaurus rex" skeleton provided more evidence that dinosaurs and birds evolved from a common ancestor and, for the first time, allowed paleontologists to establish the sex of a dinosaur. When laying eggs, female birds grow a special type of bone between the hard outer bone and the marrow of
Specimens of Archaeopteryx skeleton of a feathered animal from the same lithographic shale deposits, which would later be known as the London specimen. Coincidentally, von Meyer proposed the name "Archaeopteryx lithographica" for the feather, but not for the skeleton. Therefore, the official name of the animal was originally linked to the single feather rather than any actual skeleton, and is formally considered the original holotype. Though 1860 is often the year named for the feather's discovery, there is no proof of this date, and some authors consider it more likely to have been found in 1861, as it seems reasonable that von Meyer's