Were Dinosaurs Good Parents?

Reptiles aren’t known for their parenting skills. Most species lay their eggs and then just leave. Sometimes the eggs are laid in a nicely prepared spot, sometimes not. After the babies hatch, they’re usually on their own.

Sure, there are exceptions: Some snakes wrap themselves around a clutch of eggs to keep the eggs warm. Crocodile mothers guard their eggs, help the babies out of their eggshells, and hang around for months until the little crocs are ready to face the world on their own. A crocodile mom might even give her babies a ride to nearby water — safely inside her gigantic mouth!

Still, compared to mammals and birds — which feed, bathe, protect and care for their babies for a really long time — reptiles don’t win any parenting prizes.

So when scientists first discovered dinosaurs and identified them as reptiles, they assumed that dinos fell into the “lay them and leave them” style of parenting. In fact, when scientists in the 1920s found a fossil of a small dinosaur near a nest of eggs, they named it Oviraptor, which means “egg thief.” They figured the little dino was feasting on another dinosaur’s eggs.

They were wrong. Later research (and more fossil finds) showed that Oviraptor was actually a devoted parent, according to the University of California Museum of Paleontology. It wasn’t stealing other dinosaurs’ eggs; it was taking care of its own! Paleontologists — the scientists who study life long ago — have since found Oviraptor skeletons on top of nests, protecting and warming their eggs just like modern birds do.

In the late 1970s, the famous paleontologist Jack Horner and his colleagues found evidence showing how devoted some dinosaurs were to their offspring. They studied a place where fossils of a duck-billed dinosaur were found in all stages of development: eggs, hatchlings, juveniles, and adults. Year after year, the dinosaurs returned to that place — their nesting site — to lay their eggs and raise their young. By studying all the fossils, the scientists realized that the babies were born too weak to survive on their own. So the parents brought food back to the nest and cared for the hatchlings until they were big enough to move along with the herd. Horner chose the perfect name for the dinosaur: Maiasaura, which means “good mother lizard.”

Since the discovery of Maiasaura, paleontologists have discovered several other good-parent dinosaurs. Though some were as small as modern-day pheasants or turkeys, others were huge. One dino could weigh as much as three horses. That raised an important question: How could a dinosaur sit on a clutch of eggs to keep them warm without crushing them? Dinosaurs came up with a brilliant solution: They laid their eggs in a ring, leaving a bare spot in the middle, so most of the dino’s weight rested on the bare ground. They could then spread their arms, which were probably feathered, around the eggs.

So were all dinosaurs good parents? Hard to say. Scientists are still looking for more clues about some dinosaurs’ parenting style. Some dinos — such as the huge, long-necked sauropods — may have been too big to care for their tiny hatchlings. They wouldn’t want to risk stepping on them! Other dinosaur species probably laid their eggs and left. Fortunately, in those species, the dinosaur babies — like baby sea turtles today — hatched from their eggs ready to run and take care of themselves. And, of course, some dinosaurs were devoted parents. They took care of eggs and hatchlings that could not fend for themselves.

It wasn’t only the mothers that took care of their babies. In some dinosaur species, such as Oviraptor and Troodon, the daddy dinos probably did a lot of the parenting work: guarding the nest, keeping the eggs warm, and feeding the hatchlings. They did this so that the mother’s total energy could be focused on producing and laying the eggs. When the fathers did a lot of the parenting, the mothers laid more eggs — maybe as many as 20 to 30 at a time. That was a good way to make sure more of their offspring survived.

As they discover new fossils, scientists are learning more about dinosaurs’ lives and parenting styles. As paleontologist Michael J. Benton has noted, one thing is clear: Dinosaurs lived lives and behaved in ways that were more complicated than we originally thought. When it came to taking care of their young, they were much more like modern birds than the “lay them and leave them” reptiles that people first thought them to be.