Data from: Incubation time as an important influence on egg production and distribution into clutches for sauropod dinosaurs

Individual egg size and clutch size of the largest of the dinosaurs (the
sauropods) are both smaller than might be expected for such large
oviparous organisms. We suggest that these effects can be understood in
the light of likely incubation times of sauropod eggs. Using allometric
relationships from extant birds and crocodilians, we estimate that time
from laying to hatching was likely to have been 65–82 days. If total
predation risk varies with length of incubation time, there may be egg
sizes above which the advantages of larger initial hatchling size are
outweighed by the increased risk of predation during the egg stage. Also,
in seasonal environments there will often be a finite limit to the period
over which environmental temperatures are high enough for egg development.
Thus incubation time may have been an important constraint explaining the
small individual size of sauropod eggs. We further suggest that for
sauropods spatial dispersal of eggs in small clutches was an adaptive
strategy to mitigate this high predation risk associated with long time of
exposure in the egg stage. Such a dispersive strategy brings several
benefits. Thus, incubation time may also be key to explaining the
surprisingly small clutch sizes.