''Parafaveoloolithus'' is an

oogenus Egg fossils are the fossilized remains of eggs laid by ancient animals. As evidence of the physiological processes of an animal, egg fossils are considered a type of trace fossil. Under rare circumstances a fossil egg may preserve the remains of t ...

of Faveoloolithid

fossil egg Egg fossils are the fossilized remains of eggs laid by ancient animals. As evidence of the physiological processes of an animal, egg fossils are considered a type of trace fossil. Under rare circumstances a fossil egg may preserve the remains of t ...

, known from the

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of ...

of China.Zhang, S.K. 2010
A parataxonomic revision of the Cretaceous faveoloolithid eggs of China
''Vertebrata PalAsiatica'' 48(3):203-219

Description

''Parafaveoloolithus'' is diagnosed by its spherical or oval eggs, with a single layer of eggshell units (or a two superimposed layers in some portions). The growth lines of the shell units are undefined. Shell units are prismatic, and separated near the surface of the eggshell.

Oospecies

''Parafaveoloolithus'' contains six oospecies: * ''P. microporus'' - Spherical eggs from the

Tiantai basin Tiantai or T'ien-t'ai () is an East Asian Buddhist school of Mahāyāna Buddhism that developed in 6th-century China. The school emphasizes the '' Lotus Sutra's'' doctrine of the "One Vehicle" ('' Ekayāna'') as well as Mādhyamaka philosop ...

with a single layer of eggshell units. They are roughly 14 cm in diameter, with an eggshell that is 2.2-2.35 mm thick. It is very similar to '' Faveoloolithus ningxiaensis''. * ''P. xipingensis'' - Described in

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

as a species of ''

Youngoolithus ''Youngoolithus'' is an oogenus of dinosaur egg.Carpenter, K. 1999. Eggs, Nests, and Baby Dinosaurs: A Look at Dinosaur Reproduction (Life of the Past). Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana. It is the sole member of the oofamily Youngoo ...

''. It is from the

Upper Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', ...

Xixia County Xixia County (; postal: Sisia) is a county in the southwest of Henan province, China, bordering Shaanxi province to the west. It is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Nanyang, and has an area of and a population of 420,000 ...

Henan Province Henan (; or ; ; alternatively Honan) is a landlocked province of China, in the central part of the country. Henan is often referred to as Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou (), which literally means "central plain" or "midland", although the name is al ...

.Fang X.S., Lu L.W., Cheng Z.W., ''et al.'' (1998) ''On the Cretaceous eggs of Xixia County, Henan Province.'' Beijing : Geological Publishing House. 1-125. It was moved to ''Parafaveoloolithus'' because of its slender prismatic shell units and straight pores. * ''P. macroporus'' - Oval eggs, known from the Tiantai basin, with large pore canals. The eggs are symmetrical, and about 13 cm in diameter. * ''P. tiansicunensis'' - Also from Tiantai, ''P. tiansicunensis'' is very similar to ''P. microporus'' and ''P. macroporus'', but it has a thinner shell and the pore canals narrow sharply near the outer surface of its shell. * ''P. guoqingensis'' - Spherical eggs 18.7 cm in diameter, native to Tiantai, with numerous pores looking like a honeycomb in cross-section. This oospecies was originally described as an oospecies of '' Dendroolithus'' by Fang ''et al.'' (2000), but was moved to ''Parafaveoloolithus'' by Wang ''et al.'' (2011).Wang Qiang, Zhao Zi-kui, Wang Xiao-lin, and Jiang Yan-gen. (2011)
New ootypes of dinosaur eggs from the Late Cretaceous in Tiantai Basin, Zhejiang Province, China
" ''Vertebrata PalAsiatica'' 49(4):446-449. * ''P. pingxiangensis'' - This oospecies, first described by Zou ''et al.'' (2013), is quite distinct from the other ''Parafaveoloolithus'' oospecies because its shell is composed of several superimposed shell units. It was classified in ''Parafaveoloolithus'' because of the shell units assembling in the upper and middle portions of the shell. It is native to the Pingxiang basin of

Jiangxi Province Jiangxi (; ; formerly romanized as Kiangsi or Chianghsi) is a landlocked province in the east of the People's Republic of China. Its major cities include Nanchang and Jiujiang. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze river in the north into hi ...

.Zou S.L, Wang Q., and Wang X.L. (2013)
A new oospecies of parafaveoloolithids from the Pingxiang Basin, Jiangxi Province of China
" ''Vertebrata PalAsiatica''. 51(2):102-106.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q22285375 Egg fossils Fossil parataxa described in 2010