A COUPLE from Southwest China's Guizhou Province found eight dinosaur egg fossils when they were working at a construction site in Huizhou, the Guangzhou-based Information Times reported Monday.

Cao Taoyuan was digging a hole for the foundations of a housing estate on Yanda Road 1 Saturday when he struck red sandstone. He stopped to ask his wife to pass him a hammer drill for careful excavation and found eight round stones in the sandstone. Cao called some builders who knew something about geology. They said the stones were most likely fossils of dinosaur eggs.

They immediately placed the stones in a box and moved them into a warehouse while they reported the find to the city museum. Experts who went to the site found that the stones were fossils of dinosaur eggs from the Cretaceous period 65 million years ago.

The couple was given 400 yuan (US$48) by the company which promised a further reward after the fossils had been taken to the museum.

Cao, 39, said he had discovered other dinosaur egg fossils at a construction site in Maoming in 1995.

Yuan Xuejun, head of the museum, said the fossils revealed material evidence of geological changes in the Huizhou and Daya Bay area. They could have been destroyed by the electronic drill if the worker had not been aware of the need to protect cultural relics. More than 80 similar fossils were found only hundreds of meters away in 1989, only one meter under below the surface, said Yuan.
 

Editor: Wings