More than 13,000 creatures scanned by scientists reveal stunning images of eggs inside a turtle, the rib cage of a bat and rare snake eating a centipede [Video]

17:26 EDT 12 Mar 2024 , updated 19:38 EDT 12 Mar 2024

Scientists scanned more than 13,000 creatures, revealing eggs inside a turtle, the rib cage of a bat, and rare rim rock snake eating a centipede.

The project, called openVertebrate (oVert), was conducted by 18 institutions who spent six years scanning specimens from museums with the goal of providing useful data to researchers to make more discoveries about the animals. 

The team used high-energy X-rays to look through each specimen’s exterior, eliminating the need  to dissect them, which could potentially destroy the creatures in the process.

Scientists have already made discoveries using the scans such as learning that a rare rim rock crown snake was killed while trying to eat a centipede.

Meanwhile, it also revealed that a dinosaur called the Spinosaurus, which was larger than the Tyrannosaurus rex and was long believed to be aquatic was, in fact, a poor swimmer and would have remained on land.