by Researchers have discovered a new type of Pterosaurs – a winged reptile that lived next to dinosaurs 200 million years ago.
Scientists of the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian revealed the petrified jawbone of the creature in 2011 and have now identified that it is the oldest known kind of Pterosaur in North America.
In a remote bone in the fossilated Forest National Park in Arizona, his pair of pencil was kept in Vulcan ash 209 million years ago.
The new species would have been small enough to comfortably sit a person’s shoulder.
The remarkable fossil was discovered by Suzanne Mcintire, who volunteered in the museum fossil for 18 years.
“What was exciting about the detection of this copy was that the teeth were still in the bone, so I knew that the animal was much easier to identify,” said Mcintire.
Since the teeth were worn out, the team came to the conclusion that the Pterosaur was probably fed on the fish of the site, many of which were enclosed in armor -like standards.
The team called the new Pterosaur -Art Eotephradactylus Mcintireae. The name means “ash -winged Dawn goddess” and refers to the volcanic ashes of the site, where the fossil was found.
This part of northeastern Arizona was in the middle of Pangea and was directly above the equator 209 million years ago.
The area was crossed by small river channels and probably susceptible to seasonal floods – these floods wash the sediment and volcanic ash in the channels and probably bury the creatures that were kept in the bone bed.
In total, the team has uncovered more than 1,200 individual fossils, including bones, teeth, fish scales and coprolites or fossil faeces.
The researchers also described the fossils of an old turtle with spiked armor and a cover that could fit in a shoe box. This turtle -like animal lived at about the same time as the oldest known turtle, the fossils of which were previously uncovered in Germany.
“This indicates that turtles have quickly spread over Pangaa, which is surprising for a not very large animal and is probably at a slow pace,” said Kligman.
