We just airlifted a nest of dinosaur
eggs from a rare group of dinosaurs
called Oviraptorosaurs, and this is the
first time we've found a clutch of eggs of
this type of dinosaur on the North
American continent. So we're really
excited about getting these eggs out of
the cliffs and back to the museum.
So these eggs were found last year. We
did most of the excavation and jacketing
of them this summer, and they're from
some rocks that are Late Cretaceous in
age. So they're about 98 to 97 million
years old. And when we found this clutch
of eggs we had to jacket it all together, and the jacket weighs about 1,800 pounds.
So that's too heavy for us to actually
carry ourselves out of the cliffs, so we
had to have a helicopter lift that
jacket and transport it to the truck so
that we can drive it back to the museum.
It's rare that we're able to get the
helicopter to help us out. Usually we
have to strap these jackets to a sled
and actually get a whole bunch of people
to carry them out, but this is just way
too heavy and the terrain is too rough
for us to carry this block out ourselves.
We've been hiking in and out of this
terrain for at least five seasons. We've
covered it all on foot, but to be in the
air and actually see all the areas that
we've walked was really incredible for us. It was really exciting to see that that, you know, nest that's
our baby just take off and fly through
the air safely back down to the ground.
That was really cool.
