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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