[Andrew1978]

Indian villagers steal rare dinosaur eggs

Villagers have plundered rare dinosaur eggs just days after they were dug up in an archeological site in southern India.


By Dean Nelson in New Delhi
Published: 5:26PM BST 07 Oct 2009

Locals broke in after the government announced the discovery of the nesting site which is thought to be more than 65 million years old.

The football-sized eggs were found in a riverbed in a small village close to Tiruchirapalli, in Tamil Nadu.

It quickly became a major tourist attraction but the number of eggs at the site has since decreased as locals and tourists rushed to claim souvenirs.

Shortly after their discovery and the confirmation they were fossilised eggs, scientists leading the project called for increased security but none was provided.

The unfertilised eggs are thought to have come from the herbivore Sauropod family of dinosaurs.

Project team leader MU Ramkumar said the eggs were discovered in layers, which suggested an annual migration to the nesting site, and the presence of volcanic ash indicated they may have been wiped out by volcanic eruptions.