Sometimes we can’t see what’s right in front of our eyes. That’s exactly what happened at the Natural History Museum in London. The mineral specimen, which has been perfectly preserved for 175 years in the museum’s mineralogy collection, turned out to be a dinosaur egg. According to the museum, agate was formed inside a 60-million-year-old dinosaur egg.
According to a press release, this beautifully preserved agate specimen was collected by a man from Central India named Charles Fraser and arrived at the museum in 1883.

An egg from a titanosaur species

Robin Hansen, curator of minerals at the museum, noticed this unusual spherical agate stone in the collection. Hansen then brought the specimen to the museum’s dinosaur experts Paul Barrett and Suzanne Maidment for further study. They found that the agate elements resembled a dinosaur egg in shape, size, and texture. The team used computed tomography to find finer details to determine if there were eggs.

Careful examination revealed that the egg belonged to a Titanosaurus that roamed India during the Cretaceous period. The outer texture of the specimen shows masonry confirming the type. The eggs of this species were small and laid not one, but dozens of eggs. It turned out that this egg was similar to Titanosaurus eggs found in China and Argentina.

The team believes the agate egg was formed by volcanic activity in the area. A volcanic eruption may have covered the dinosaur eggs after they were laid. The silicates may have seeped through the eggshell a short time later, forming agate.
But how did it get into the mineralogy collection? Dinosaur eggs were not scientifically recognized at the time, and this may be the first known egg, according to the team.

“This specimen is a great example of why museum collections are so important. In 1883, it was correctly identified and cataloged as agate using the scientific information available at the time. It was only now that we realized that this specimen had something special,” Robin said. agate filled this spherical structure and it turned out to be a dinosaur egg, which is currently on display in the Titanosaurus: Life as the Biggest Dinosaur exhibit.