Scientists have discovered in China the eggs of the omnivorous ostrich-like dinosaur, which differ in blue-green color.

As the scientists note, many birds lay white, unpigmented eggs, like modern lizards, crocodiles, turtles and the only known oviparous mammals, platypus and echidna. Therefore, scientists assumed that the dinosaur eggs were exceptionally white, and the colored eggs in some birds appeared after the giant lizards had died out.

The new find completely reverses this view. According to scientists, eggs of Heyuannia huangi oviraptors, covered with feathers of dinosaurs, which resembled modern ostriches, are painted in blue-green color. This made them, according to scientists, invisible in open nests dug in the ground.

With the help of chemical analysis, the researchers found in dinosaur eggs bilivirin and protoporphyrin, which are often found in eggs in modern birds. According to scientists, in the past eggs of dinosaurs were more likely green, like the one in which the eggs of modern emu.

"Everyone thought that the dinosaur eggs were white," says study co-author Yasmin Veenan of Yale University. Now it became obvious that this was an erroneous opinion. This is reported by National Geographic.