A team of Chinese and American scientists excavated some well-preserved fossils in the Gobi Desert. The team says the herd of ostrich-like sinornithomimus lived some 90 million years ago.

“This is a very exciting discovery, because 99.9 percent of the time, we find a group of skeletons that died at different periods due to unknown causes,” said Paul Sereno, a University of Chicago professor on the excavation team. “The other 0.1 percent of the time, scientists consider themselves lucky to find small herds that have been well-preserved after floods or volcanic eruptions, similar to that of Pompeii.”

Twenty five young sinornithomimus were found near Suhongtu, a tiny, remote village in the Gobi desert about 370 miles (600 kilometers) west of Hohhot.

The scientists concocted a story saying the position of the dinosaur bones suggest the animals were looking for water at the edge of a lake, got stuck in mud and drowned in the mud.

Another paleontologist says the youngsters were left behind by their parents.

I like a good story as much as the next guy … but how do they know these things?

There’s a city in Japan called Oyashirazu. Oya = parent. Shirazu = don’t know. The city is named because a high tide came in as a parent and child were swimming together. The mother hurried to safety but forgot about her child as if she didn’t know she had a child to take care of.

Did these sinornithomimus (Chinese bird mimic) leave us a story to tell, too?

Image by pnp