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Long-necked sauropod dinosaurs include the largest animals ever to walk on land, but they hatched from eggs no bigger than a soccer ball. A lack of young sauropod fossils, however, has left the earliest lives in mystery. Did they require parental care after hatching like some other dinosaurs, or were they self-reliant?
New research sheds the first light on the life of a young Rapetosaurus, a titanosaurian sauropod buried in the Upper Cretaceous Maevarano Formation of Madagascar. The baby behemoths were active, capable of a wider array of maneuvers than adult members of their species, and didn't need parental care after hatching.Image credit: Demetrios Vital
