“The Thing,” an unknown object that has recently been discovered in Antarctica, has caught the attention of scientists all over the world. Luckily, they finally managed to come with an answer for its true origins.
Back in 2011, a team of researchers from Chile managed to discover a never seen fossil in Antarctica, having a shape that bears a striking resemblance to a deflated rugby ball. Almost ten years have passed since the discovery, and the fossil was exposed at Chile’s National Museum of Natural History, even though the scientists were unable to explain the formation and evolution of this mysterious artifact.
Originally, the fossil was named “The Thing,” given its unique background that researchers were unable to underpin. Fortunately, a team of archeologists from the University of Texas at Austin have finally managed to cast a light on this mystery, stating that their discovery unravels the origins of The Thing. Their discovery of a 66 million years old giant soft shell egg from the same region is thought to have been a giant reptile.
The fossil seems to be a giant egg of a giant relative of the lizards and snakes. If the time had not deflated the shell, this egg would have given birth to a 20 feet long reptile, presumably part of the mosasaurs or plesiosaurus families.
While one of the species naturally lays its eggs in the open water, the way some snake species give birth, the other one naturally stocks its eggs on a beach, and the species jump into the seawater like baby sea turtles. Researchers have underlined that giving birth to such impressive species requires a lot of effort coming from the mother’s side. This risk is caused by the dinosaur’s giant mass that is too heavy to be supported by our gravitation.