Continuoolithus
Continuoolithus is an oogenus (fossil egg genus) of dinosaur egg found in the late Cretaceous of North America. It is most commonly known from the late Campanian of Alberta and Montana, but specimens have also been found dating to the older Santonian and the younger Maastrichtian. It was laid by an unknown type of theropod. These small eggs (measuring long) are similar to the eggs of oviraptorid dinosaurs (oofamily Elongatoolithidae), but have a distinctive type of ornamentation. Continuoolithus nests would have been incubated under vegetation and sediment, unlike nests of Troodon and oviraptorids, which were incubated by brooding adults. Adaptations in the eggshell, such as high porosity and prominent ornamentation, would have helped the embryo breathe while buried. One fossil egg contains a tiny embryonic skeleton at an exceptionally young stage of development (perhaps eight to ten days old) showing the earliest stages of bone development. Description Complete eggs range from to in size. They are elongated and ovoid shaped (i.e., with one blunt end and one pointed end). Known nesting traces contain from three to six eggs arranged parallel to each-other in linear rows. The outer surface of the egg is ornamented with coarse ornamentation, accounting for one fifth