Recently, the researchers from Canada reported that they have traced a likely owner of a dinosaur nest, left on a river’s edge nearly 77 million years ago. They also claimed that the discovery provides an innovative look at dinosaur reproduction and the evolution of birds.

“The nest, unearthed in northern Montana in the 1990s, likely belonged to one of two types of small, carnivorous dinosaurs,” said Scientists from the University of Calgary and Alberta's Royal Tyrrell Museum.

The scientists suspect them to be either a ceanagnathid, which looks somewhat like an ostrich, or a small raptor called a dromaeosaurid. These two, which are small by dinosaur standards are related to modern birds.

The discovered nest, which most probably might be having dozens of eggs, was found with only fossilized fragments.

Francois Therrien, curator of dinosaur palaeoecology at the Royal Tyrrel, and co-investigator, said, “We think, based on characteristics of the eggs, that we are probably dealing with a nest from a small raptor but we can't be 100 percent sure and rule out the other one. The latest nest was discovered by commercial fossil hunters and originally thought to be from a relatively common duck-billed hadrosaur.”

Darla Zelenitsky, a University of Calgary paleontologist, identified the nest of a small meat-eater. The nest was in a shape of a raised mound 50 cm (20 inches) across and surrounded by eggs.

Zelenitsky is the lead author of a paper on the nest, which was published on Thursday in the journal, Paleontology.

“The find gives scientists new information on the evolution of reproduction in small carnivorous dinosaurs, filling in key gap in their knowledge and offering insight into how bird’s methods of laying eggs and brooding evolved,” said Therrien.

He added, “This nest reveals that modern birds are not unique in the way they reproduce. They actually inherited a lot of their ways of laying eggs from their dinosaur ancestors.”

In 2006, the nest was acquired by the Royal Tyrrell, and will be put on display in the museum in Drumheller, Alberta.