Pterosaurs first appeared 215 million years ago. They took to the air 50 million years before birds. And while they lived alongside some of the bigwigs of the Cretaceous period like Tyrannosaurus rex, Velociraptor and Spinosaurus, these weren’t dinosaurs — they were flying reptiles that successfully ruled the skies until they went extinct 66 million years ago.
By all standards, pterosaurs were evolutionarily triumphant, with numerous species thriving all over the globe. But there’s a lot we don’t know about them because few pterosaur fossils survive intact. That’s why paleontologists were ecstatic to find a perfectly preserved pterosaur beneath the sandstone on Isle of Skye, an island off of Scotland’s northwest coast.
“Pterosaurs are some of the rarest vertebrate animals in the fossil record. Their bones are so lightweight and fragile, some with walls thinner than a sheet of paper,” says Steve Brusatte, a paleontologist and professor at The University ...
