Pterosaurs were reptiles that diversified during the Mesozoic (between 250 and 65 million years ago) modifying their body design for flight, although in a very different way from birds and bats. A new species of these ancientflying reptileshas recently been discovered in theLas Hoyas deposit (Cuenca), and was just described in the magazinePLoS ONE by a team of Spanish paleontologists in which experts from France and Brazil also participate.
According to the publication, the pterosaur belonged to the Lower Cretaceous (125 million years ago), lacked teeth and a tail, and sported a prominent crest on the skull. It also had a sharp, sharp beak that scientists attribute to a granivorous and frugivorous diet, the oldest evidence of this dietary adaptation in pterosaurs.
The fossil evidence of theEuropejara olcadesorum, as it has been baptized, consists of a well-preserved skull measuring between 35 and 40 centimeters. The piece, after being studied with modern paleontological techniques, has allowed researchers to infer anatomical details of the species, as well as to recognize its morphological attributes, its evolutionary history and its ecological role in the Lower Cretaceous ecosystems.
The Europejara olcadesorum would be related to the tapejarids, a family of pterosaurs that until now had only been discovered in China and Brazil. In addition to being the first in the European fossil record, Europejara olcadesorum is the oldest representative of the tapejarids found so far in the world, which would indicate a Eurasian origin of the family.
The discovery of this new tapejárido pterosaur is one more sample of thebiological wealth that characterized the Iberian Peninsula in the Lower Cretaceous, then an oceanic island in the Tethys Sea. The Yacimiento de las Hoyas is a paleoecosystem belonging to this period -more exactly to the Barremian age- that has been interpreted as a tropical shallow-water wetland, and whose fauna and flora are comparable to those of the famous Jehol Biota (north of China). Furthermore, the fact that some of the first flowering plants (angiosperms) have been discovered in the Iberian Peninsula and in China, suggests to the authors that tapejarid species such as theEuropejara olcadesorum, due to their particular frugivorous habits and their ability to fly, contribute to the task ofglobal seed dispersal.
