200 million year-old jawbone revealed as new species
Details of the discovery are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.At about 209 million years old, this is now believed to be the earliest pterosaur to be found in North America."The bones of Triassic pterosaurs are small, thin, and often hollow, so they get destroyed before they get fossilised," explained Dr Kligman.The site of this discovery is a fossil bed in a desert landscape of ancient rock in the Petrified Forest National Park. More than 200 million years ago, this place was a riverbed, and layers of sediment gradually trapped and preserved bones, scales and other evidence of life at the time. The river ran through the central region of what was the supercontinent of Pangaea, which was formed from all of Earth's landmasses.BBC Sounds: 200 years of dinosaur scienceFossil of largest Jurassic pterosaur found on SkyeDragon Prince dinosaur rewrites T-rex family tree
The pterosaur jaw is just one part of a collection of fossils found at the same site, including bones, teeth, fish scales and even fossilised poo (also known as coprolites).Dr Kligman said: "Our ability to recognise pterosaur bones in [these ancient] river deposits suggests there may be other similar deposits from Triassic rocks around the world that may also preserve pterosaur bones."
Studying the pterosaur's teeth also provided clues about what the seagull-sized winged reptile would have eaten. "They have an unusually high degree of wear at their tips," explained Dr Kligman. suggesting that this pterosaur was feeding on something with hard body parts." The most likely prey, he told BBC News, were primitive fish that would have been covered in an armour of boney scales. Scientists say the site of the discovery has preserved a "snapshot" of an ecosystem where groups of animals that are now extinct, including giant amphibians and ancient armoured crocodile relatives, lived alongside animals that we could recognise today, including frogs and turtles. This fossil bed, Dr Kligman said, has preserved evidence of an evolutionary "transition" 200 million years ago. "We see groups that thrived later living alongside older animals that [didn't] make it past the Triassic. "Fossil beds like these enable us to establish that all of these animals actually lived together."
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The Independent
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New species of flying reptile that lived among dinosaurs 200 million years ago discovered
Researchers have discovered a new species of pterosaur - a winged reptile that lived alongside dinosaurs 200 million years ago. Scientists at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History uncovered the fossilised jawbone of the creature in 2011, and have now identified it to be the oldest known species of pterosaur in North America. Unearthed at a remote bonebed in Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, its jawbone was preserved in volcanic ash 209 million years ago. The new species would have been small enough to comfortably perch on a person's shoulder. The remarkable fossil was unearthed by Suzanne McIntire, who volunteered in the museum's FossiLab for 18 years. 'What was exciting about uncovering this specimen was that the teeth were still in the bone, so I knew the animal would be much easier to identify,' McIntire said. Because the tips of the teeth were worn down, the team concluded that the pterosaur likely fed on the site's fish, many of which were encased in armor-like scales. The team named the new pterosaur species Eotephradactylus mcintireae. The name means 'ash-winged dawn goddess' and references the site's volcanic ash where the fossil was found. This part of northeastern Arizona was positioned in the middle of Pangaea and sat just above the equator 209 million years ago. The area was crisscrossed by small river channels and likely prone to seasonal floods - these floods washed sediment and volcanic ash into the channels and likely buried the creatures preserved in the bonebed. In total, the team has uncovered more than 1,200 individual fossils, including bones, teeth, fish scales and coprolites, or fossilised faeces. The researchers also described the fossils of an ancient turtle with spike-like armor and a shell that could fit inside a shoebox. This tortoise-like animal lived around the same time as the oldest known turtle, whose fossils were previously uncovered in Germany. 'This suggests that turtles rapidly dispersed across Pangaea, which is surprising for an animal that is not very large and is likely walking at a slow pace,' Kligman said.
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6 hours ago
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BBC News
10 hours ago
- BBC News
200 million year-old jawbone revealed as new species
Scientists have discovered a new species of pterosaur – a flying reptile that soared above the dinosaurs more than 200 million years jawbone of the ancient reptile was unearthed in Arizona back in 2011, but modern scanning techniques have now revealed details showing that it belongs to a species new to research team, led by scientists at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC, has named the creature Eotephradactylus mcintireae, meaning "ash-winged dawn goddess".It is a reference to the volcanic ash that helped preserve its bones in an ancient riverbed. Details of the discovery are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of about 209 million years old, this is now believed to be the earliest pterosaur to be found in North America."The bones of Triassic pterosaurs are small, thin, and often hollow, so they get destroyed before they get fossilised," explained Dr site of this discovery is a fossil bed in a desert landscape of ancient rock in the Petrified Forest National Park. More than 200 million years ago, this place was a riverbed, and layers of sediment gradually trapped and preserved bones, scales and other evidence of life at the time. The river ran through the central region of what was the supercontinent of Pangaea, which was formed from all of Earth's Sounds: 200 years of dinosaur scienceFossil of largest Jurassic pterosaur found on SkyeDragon Prince dinosaur rewrites T-rex family tree The pterosaur jaw is just one part of a collection of fossils found at the same site, including bones, teeth, fish scales and even fossilised poo (also known as coprolites).Dr Kligman said: "Our ability to recognise pterosaur bones in [these ancient] river deposits suggests there may be other similar deposits from Triassic rocks around the world that may also preserve pterosaur bones." Studying the pterosaur's teeth also provided clues about what the seagull-sized winged reptile would have eaten. "They have an unusually high degree of wear at their tips," explained Dr Kligman. suggesting that this pterosaur was feeding on something with hard body parts." The most likely prey, he told BBC News, were primitive fish that would have been covered in an armour of boney scales. Scientists say the site of the discovery has preserved a "snapshot" of an ecosystem where groups of animals that are now extinct, including giant amphibians and ancient armoured crocodile relatives, lived alongside animals that we could recognise today, including frogs and turtles. This fossil bed, Dr Kligman said, has preserved evidence of an evolutionary "transition" 200 million years ago. "We see groups that thrived later living alongside older animals that [didn't] make it past the Triassic. "Fossil beds like these enable us to establish that all of these animals actually lived together."
