Some 170 million years ago , the Isle of Skye was home to a huge flying reptile with a colossal wingspan, the size of an albatross , new research published in the journal Current Biology has revealed.
A team of fossil hunters in Scotland claims to have recovered the remains of the world’s largest Jurassic pterosaur. This creature has revealed that pterosaurs with a wingspan of 2.5 meters existed about 25 million years earlier than previously thought. Previous studies had suggested that pterosaurs did not grow much beyond 1.6-1.8 meters in wingspan during the Jurassic and only reached much larger sizes during the Cretaceous period.
“When this thing lived about 170 million years ago, it was the largest animal that had ever flown, at least that we know of,” explains Steve Brusatte of the University of Edinburgh and co-author of the study. “We’ve really turned the evolution of large pterosaurs back in time.”
According to experts, the specimen is spectacularly well preserved, with parts of the skull, limb bones, tail, ribs and vertebrae still intact ; something unusual and less when it comes to pterosaurs. And even more striking, as it is such an old specimen. The fossils comprise approximately 70% of the creature, which is truly exceptional for a pterosaur.
And what was this creature like?
Apart from having a wingspan of 2.5 meters, as this study has shown, this pterosaur would have flown over the ancient waters of Scotland during the Jurassic period, feeding on fish and squid. It had “enormous and well-defined” teeth and fangs to pull its prey out of the water, aided by its keen eyesight (something they have inferred thanks to the remarkable condition and integrity of this specimen, especially the details of its skull). . As a curiosity, the researchers suggest that it was an adolescent individual, so its wings could have reached 3 meters in length in its adult stage (although not as impressive as Quetzalcoatlus , with a wingspan of 10 meters or more during the period). Cretaceous).
Their size “tells us that pterosaurs got bigger much earlier than we thought, long before the Cretaceous period when they were competing with birds, and that’s highly significant ,” the authors say.
This species, which has received the Gaelic name of Dearc sgiathanach, which translates as ‘winged reptile’, coexisted with carnivorous dinosaurs similar to Tyrannosaurus rex that dominated the land while this Jurassic pterosaur did so in the waters.
“Scotland back then was a very different environment, much, much hotter and wetter,” says Natalia Jagielska, leader of the work. “It was almost tropical, think of the Canary Islands, something like that.”
A titanic effort that has been worth it
After the fossil was recovered, it was taken to the University of Edinburgh for analysis and description, which took almost five years. CT scans of the skull revealed large optic lobes, indicating that Dearc would have had good eyesight. The specimen will be studied in depth in order to learn more about the behavior of this creature, in particular, how it lived and flew.
The pterosaur fossil will be added to the National Museums of Scotland collection.
Referencia: Natalia Jagielska et al. A skeleton from the Middle Jurassic of Scotland illuminates an earlier origin of large pterosaurs Current Biology Published:February 22, 2022 DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2022.01.073
