Here we describe new types of dinosaur eggs found from the Late Cretaceous Chichengshan Formation in the Tiantai Basin,Zhejiang Province.On the basis of such characters as small spheroid or near-spheroid,columnar layer composed of three zones,the outer zone consisted of stalagmite-like or coralliform secondary shell units,we established two new oogenera,one new and one combination oospecies:Stalicoolithus shifengensis oogen.et oosp.nov.and Coralloidoolithus shizuiwanensis oogen.et comb.nov.In addition,re-examination of the holotype of Shixingoolithus erbeni from the Upper Cretaceous Pingling Formation,Guangdong Province reveals that it was erroneously attributed to Spheroolithidae,and should be transferred to stalicoolithid.Consequently,we established a new oofamily:Stalicoolithidae oofam.nov.Stalicoolthids represents a new model of dinosaur eggshell and thus sheds new light on the formation and evolution of amniotic eggshells.
The two dinosaur eggs studied in this paper are from Turpan Basin in Xinjiang Autonomous Region, China, collected by an expedition team of IVPP in 1960s. The specimens were collected in Subashi Formation,Upper Cretaceous. The locality is approximately 48 km south of Shisanjianfang railway station (Zhai et al., 1978). Zhao (1979) made an observation on these specimens, and believed that they represent a new form of Ovaloolithus, but did not give any description at that time. In this paper, a brief description of these materials will be given.
