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benvonpluton t1_ityl5rl wrote

Air can pass through the shell. As a matter of fact, that's why dinosaur eggs weren't much bigger than an ostrich egg even when the adults could be 30 or 40 meters long : a bigger egg would have needed a thicker shell, which would have made it impossible for the air to pass through.

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Tohrchur t1_itzt2hu wrote

does that mean ostrich eggs are roughly the maximum size for an egg?

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AtmaJnana t1_itzznri wrote

Ostrich eggs are not the largest known eggs. Elephant bird eggs apparently ranged up to about twice as large as the average ostrich egg.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur_egg#Structure

>Dinosaur eggs vary greatly in size and shape, but even the largest dinosaur eggs (Megaloolithus) are smaller than the largest known bird eggs, which were laid by the extinct elephant bird.

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perpetualwalnut t1_itzxa7i wrote

I can also imaging that as the egg size goes larger the volume increases faster than the surface area of the shell compounding the lack of oxygen problem.

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burningmanonacid t1_iu0cnat wrote

Am glad to see this this far up. More than air can pass through the shell too. In Ireland, they used to use butter all over eggs to close the pores and keep them longer according to a book I read before. They could be kept for much longer than normal like that and also come out tasting kinda buttery without needing to add it.

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