The purported discovery of the first known cache of dinosaur eggs in the North Caucasus Chechen Republic reported on April 13, 2012, has been determined to be stones instead of dinosaur eggs according to an article in the gazeta.ru that quotes the Russian news service RIA Novosti.
Kirill Es’kov, Senior Research Fellow of the Paleontological Institute of the Russian Science Academy, disputes the age of the rocks that were formerly claimed to be dinosaur eggs by workers from the Chechen State University’s geology faculty as being outside any possible geological time frame that is evinced in the area where the “eggs” were discovered.
Es’kov also notes that the size of the eggs (between 24 and 100 centimeters in diameter) is beyond the size of any known dinosaur eggs found to date.
The claims that a cross-section of one of the eggs (now stones) showed a defined shell, yolk, and albumen and the 60 million year age of the eggs may have been an attempt to attract paleo-tourists to the Chechen region according to Kirill Es’kov.
The eggs that are actually stones were delivered to the Paleontological Institute of the Russian Science Academy for analysis shortly after the discovery was announced.
