North America’s oldest known pterosaur — a creature roughly the size of a modern-day gull — would have glided over the tropical forests and braided rivers of equatorial Pangea, likely dining on fish and mingling with six-foot amphibians.
This ancient flying reptile has been named Eotephradactylus mcintireae, meaning “ash-winged dawn goddess” — a reference to its place near the base of the pterosaur’s family tree. The species was described in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences following the discovery of a fossilized jawbone buried within the volcanic ash of Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona.
Pterosaurs: Flying Reptiles of the Late Triassic
Pterosaurs were a clade of flying reptiles that appeared in the Late Triassic Period. They were the first vertebrates known to have evolved powered flight and would have commanded the skies tens of millions of years before birds. These winged beasts lived alongside the likes of the tyrannosaurus and triceratops, but (unlike birds) were not dinosaurs themselves. Instead, they are better described as cousins with a shared common ancestor.
There are currently more than 200 species of pterosaur known to science — some no bigger than a blue jay, others almost as tall as a giraffe. As well as varying greatly in appearance, they occupied a vast range of habitats and feasted on an array of different diets. In this case, the tips of the teeth on the fossil belonging to the Eotephradactylus mcintireae were worn down, suggesting it is highly probable that it fed on fish with tough scaly exteriors — prey that would have been in abundant supply at the time.
Read More: New Pterosaur Species Lived 100 Million Years Ago with a 15-Foot Wingspan
A Pterosaur Frozen in Time
The pterosaur bone was hidden amongst a horde of fossilized treasures that contained over 1,200 individual specimens from the late Triassic Period. This included bones, teeth, scales, and even fossilized poop.
The collection offers a fascinating glimpse into a world in transition, when earlier animals, such as armed herbivores and crocodile-like carnivores, co-existed with (relatively speaking) more modern creatures, such as early frogs, pterosaurs, and turtles.
In total, the fossil bed contains evidence of 16 groups of vertebrate animals, including 6-foot-long amphibians and freshwater sharks.
“The site captures the transition to more modern terrestrial vertebrate communities where we start seeing groups that thrive later in the Mesozoic living alongside these older animals that don’t make it past the Triassic,” Ben Kligman, a paleontologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, said in a press release.
“Fossil beds like these enable us to establish that all of these animals actually lived together,” Kligman added in the release.
The fossil collection dates back some 209 million years ago, when Northeastern Arizona — including what is now Petrified Forest National Park — was part of Pangaea. The site would have been in the middle of the continent, somewhere just above the equator.
Researchers say the discovery helps fill a gap in the historical record just prior to the end-Triassic extinction, a catastrophic event that occurred approximately 201.5 million years ago and wiped out roughly 75 percent of species that were alive at the time.
An Ancient Turtle with Spiky Armor
The pterosaur bone was not the only exciting discovery. Paleontologists uncovered the fossilized remains of an ancient turtle, which would have sported a spike-like armour and donned a shell no larger than a shoebox. What is particularly interesting is its age. According to the study’s authors, the animal would have lived around the same time as the oldest known turtle, found 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,” said Kligman in a press release.
Read More: Ancient Footprints Reveal When Giant Flying Reptiles Took to the Ground
Article Sources
Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Unusual bone bed reveals a vertebrate community with pterosaurs and turtles in equatorial Pangaea before the end-Triassic extinction
Natural History Museum. Pterosaurs: The truth about these ‘flying dinosaurs’
Rosie McCall is a freelance writer living in London. She has covered science and health topics for publications, including IFLScience, Newsweek, and Health.
