title: Crocodilian Nest in a Late Cretaceous Sauropod Hatchery from the Type Lameta Ghat Locality, Jabalpur, India.
abstract: The well-known Late Cretaceous Lameta Ghat locality (Jabalpur, India) provides a window of opportunity to study a large stable, near shore sandy beach, which was widely used by sauropod dinosaurs as a hatchery. In this paper, we revisit the eggs and eggshell fragments previously assigned to lizards from this locality and reassign them to crocodylomorphs. Several features point to a crocodilian affinity, including a subspherical to ellipsoidal shape, smooth, uneven external surface, discrete trapezoid shaped shell units with wide top and narrow base, basal knobs and wedge shaped crystallites showing typical inverted triangular extinction under crossed nicols. The crocodylomorph eggshell material presented in this paper adds to the skeletal data of these most probably Cretaceous-Eocene dryosaurid crocodiles.
authors.affiliation: 361/II, Tikait Rai LDA Colony, Lucknow-226017, India.
authors.forename: Rahul
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Srivastava
authors.affiliation: Centre of Advanced Study in Geology, Panjab University, Chandigarh-160014, India.
authors.forename: Rajeev
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Patnaik
authors.affiliation: Department of Geology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi-221006, India.
authors.forename: U K
authors.initials: UK
authors.lastname: Shukla
authors.affiliation: Centre of Advanced Study in Geology, Panjab University, Chandigarh-160014, India.
authors.forename: Ashok
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sahni
mesh_terms: D000489:Alligators and Crocodiles; D000818:Animals; D025061:Dinosaurs; D004528:Egg Shell / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D005580:Fossils; D007194:India; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning