Batch of dinosaur eggs found in Russia's Chechnya region

[warrior1]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47076566/ns/technology_and_science-science/#.T43itI7AHmo

[Whisp]

1. I thought of Game of Thrones when I read your title.

I think I need help.

[IcyPeas]

7. so did I. we both need help.

[white_wolf]

16. I did too.

Hmm, so who wants to be our volunteer to sacrifice themselves to bring back dinosaurs?

[warrior1]

2. they're a tad smaller

[Cleita]

4. Me too. :-) n/t

[kentuck]

9. Those are dragon eggs...

[dipsydoodle]

3. Just imagine

the sheer size of the sausages and rashers of bacon which went with those suckers.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

5. Clearly Satan put them there to mislead us.

[joeybee12]

6. Those look really neat! knr

[Brother Buzz]

8. Looks like concretions to me

but what do I know?

[sarcasmo]

10. How can that be? the planet is only 6,000 years old.

What a find.

[sufrommich]

11. Now they need to extract some DNA,

grow some dinosaurs, and open a park!

[DirkGently]

12. Let the Sci-Fi movie plot begin. The one on left is ... vibrating. Slightly.

[pinboy3niner]

14. Somebody they ought to call in...

...just in case.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

13. those are not dino eggs

Dinosaurs laid small eggs, round ones not much bigger than an ostrich egg. any larger, and they become oblong. 2ft long, 8 inches around is the biggest found.

and if I recall correctly, that area didn't have dino's at all

[Marrah_G]

15. Very cool picture

[warrior1]

17. I can't

get over how large these eggs were.

[MineralMan]

18. I'm going to wait on this one.

I suspect those are concretions in that sedimentary formation. Similar ones were found near my boyhood home in California in a similar formation. They were also called "dinosaur eggs." But then, a couple of them were sawn in half. Concretions. Not eggs at all. Such spherical concretions are often mistaken for dinosaur eggs. See this Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concretion

We'll see on these, maybe. However, we may never hear any more about them.

[eppur_se_muova]

19. Definitely got to vote for concretions. nt

[Tom Rinaldo]

20. Don't know about that bunch but I have a dinosaur egg on my bookcase.

Bought it about 10 years ago from a fossil and meteor dealer. It came out of China before China made exporting them illegal - the U.S. made inporting them from China illegal in 2009. For a while there was a real market for Chinese exports of them for collectors. They are not at all unheard of to own privately - and yes there are some fakes but they aren't convincing if you know what real ones look like. I paid $400 for mine in a wholesale transaction at the time. I could have had a less well preserved speciman for $200.

Here's a link to a web site that sells them. Mine is a Hadrosaur egg. It looks kind of like a cross between items #160 and #223 on this page:
http://www.dinosaur-eggs.com/Hadrosaur_Singles.html

They are essentially formed the same way that petrified wood is - there is nothing organic left. Very rarely there is internal evidence of the one time fetus. I had mine tested by a friend who had access to the equipment needed to find out if it does, and it doesn't. It still is very very cool.

[former9thward]

21. Russian Paleontologist debunks the claim.

He says the 'eggs' are just rocks. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/scientist-says-dinosaur-eggs-found-in-chechnya-actually-rocks/457137.html