In a rare discovery, palaeontologists have found a massive hatching site of Titanosaurs in the Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh, containing 92 nests and 256 eggs. Titanosaurs were among the largest known dinosaurs to have lived. They could measure up to 100 feet in length. The finding, published in the journal PLOS ONE, reveals details about the lives of Titanosaurs and their parenting nature.

“These fossil nests also provide a wealth of data about some of the largest dinosaurs in history, and they come from a time shortly before the age of dinosaurs came to an end,” the researchers said in the study ‘New Late Cretaceous Titanosaur sauropod dinosaur egg clutches from lower Narmada valley, India: Palaeobiology and taphonomy.’

The Lameta Formation of the Bagh District of lower Narmada Valley is already known for fossils of dinosaur skeletons and eggs of the Late Cretaceous Period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago, the researchers said.

They identified six different egg-species suggest a higher diversity of Titanosaurs than is represented by skeletal remains from this region. Based on the layout of the nests, the team inferred that these dinosaurs buried their eggs in shallow pits like modern-day crocodiles.

“Our research has revealed the presence of an extensive hatchery of Titanosaur sauropod dinosaurs in the study area,” said the study’s lead author Harsha Dhiman from Department of Geology, Center for Advanced Studies, University of Delhi.

"The study offers new insights into the conditions of nest preservation and reproductive strategies of titanosaur sauropod dinosaurs just before they went extinct," he said  in a statement.

Other authors of the study included Vishal Verma, from Higher Secondary School, Bakaner, Dhar District, Madhya Pradesh, Lourembam R Singh from Department of Geology, Panjab University, Chandigarh, Deepak Kumar Jha, Sampat K Tandon and Prasanta Sanyal, all from Department of Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Kolkata, and Guntupalli VR Prasad from Department of Geology, Center for Advanced Studies, University of Delhi..

Certain pathologies found in the eggs, such as a rare case of "egg-in-egg," indicate that titanosaur sauropods had a reproductive physiology that parallels that of birds and possibly laid their eggs in a sequential manner as seen in modern birds.

The presence of many nests in the same area suggests these dinosaurs exhibited colonial nesting behaviour like many modern birds. However, the close spacing of the nests left little room for adult dinosaurs, supporting the idea that adults left the hatchlings (newborns) to fend for themselves.

"Parental care must have been absent as the size difference between juvenile and parent dinosaur is enormous and clutches are closely spaced. This also supports precocial behaviour of juveniles which must have left clutches soon after hatching. On the basis of abundant clutches, closely spaced clutches, similar eggs, and different oospecies, it is concluded that the titanosaurs of the study areas adopted for colonial nesting behavior," said the researchers.