SCIENCE-BASED PARENTING

The first Oviraptor (a.k.a. “egg thief”) was discovered in 1924 and was so named because the scientist who made the discovery assumed that the meat-eating male raptor fossil was found on a clutch of eggs because it was hungry. Decades later, scientists have adjusted their opinion to be a little less sexist.

Now scientists are theorizing that the fathers were actually the primary caregivers in several species of maniraptoran dinosaurs. This isn’t unusual even today. There are living  species of modern birds that follow a similar parenting style, including ostriches, emus, and kiwis. The comparison between the raptors and the modern awks was based on an analysis of the ratio between egg size and bird size; the larger the eggs and clutch, the smaller the bird, the more likely the male to be first dude. The theory is that the female uses up a lot of energy by squeezing out such huge eggs, so she runs off to fatten up, while the man stays by the nest to protect the offspring.

Yale Ornithologist Richard Plum summed up the new theory nicely, “What I really love about it is that these are representatives of the most ferocious and terrifying lineage of animals that ever was, right? Including close relatives of T. Rex and company.  So it’s really ironic to me that these macho, bipedal meat-eaters were good dads.”

Exactly.  It’s one thing to have wussy seahorses to represent at-home dads in the animal kingdom, but it’s quite another to know that the toothy killing machines featured in Jurassic Park were actually house husbands.  Kind of cool when you think about it.

This theory, by the way, is based on interpretations from a limited amount of evidence, but since we’ll never actually know for sure, I’m going to chalk up oviraptors as an example of exceptional dino-fatherhood (until someone tells me otherwise).  Check out NPR’s excellent story on these dad dinos here.