by Scientists in America have discovered fossils from a series of animals, many of which were previously unknown and the dinosaurs declined.
The newly found fossils, including those from a Pterosaur, the oldest flying reptile of North America, were discovered by scientists in Arizona and are 209 million years old.
The remains of the Pterosaur, about the size of a small seagull, and the other creatures were discovered in the petrified forest national park, a place that is famous for the production of plants and animals from the Triassic period, including huge tree trunks. The fossils include at least 16 vertebrates, seven of which were previously unknown.
Other new arrivals in the scene were primitive frogs, lizard-like reptiles and one of the earliest known turtle hall today resemble their relatives. The largest meat eaters and herbivores of this ecosystem were part of the reptile lines that bloomed at the time, but died out relatively soon afterwards.
The fossils that dive into rocky rocks with volcanic ashes offer a snapshot of a flourishing tropical ecosystem that is crossed by rivers on the southern edge of a large desert.
The triad came to the heels of the largest mass extinction of the earth 252 million years ago and then ended with another mass extinction of 201 million years ago, which many of the most important competitors wiped out the dinosaurs, which was achieved in the subsequent jura period with undisputed supremacy. Both disasters were apparently caused by extreme volcanism.
While it redeemed the dinosaurs’ age, no dinosaurs were found in this ecosystem that illustrated how they had not yet become dominant.
“Although dinosaurs are found in contemporary rocks from Arizona and New Mexico, they weren’t part of this ecosystem that we study,” said Paleontologist Ben Kligman from the National Museum of the Smithsonian Institution of Natural History in Washington, which was headed by the study of the National Academy of Scissesces published in the magazine.
“This is strange and may have to do with dinosaurs who prefer to live in other types of environments,” added Kligman.
This ecosystem was located directly above the equator in the middle of the past super continent called Pangea, which later broke apart and produced today’s continents.
Pterosaurs, cousins of the dinosaurs, were the first vertebrates that were driven, followed by birds and bats. It is believed that Pterosaurs performed about 230 million years ago, about the same time as the earliest dinosaurs, although their oldest known fossils come in Europe around 215 million years ago.
The newly identified pterosaurs called Eotephradactylus Mcintireae is said to have hunted how fish populate the local rivers. His partly skeleton comprises part of a tooth -related lower jaw, some additional isolated teeth and the bones of his elongated fingers, which contributed to forming his wing apparatus.
The wingspan was about three feet (one meter) and his skull was about four inches long. It had curved teeth in front of the mouth to grab fish when it flew over rivers and blade -like teeth in the back of the jaw to cut prey. The researchers said Eotephradactylus had a tail, like all early Pterosaurs.
Eotephradactylus means “ash -winged twilight goddess”, which recognizes the nature of the rock in which it was found, and the position of the species at the beginning of the Pterosaur line. Mcintireae recognizes Suzanne Mcintire, the former Smithsonian Fossil Pearator who discovered it.
The turtle was a country living in a country, while the lizard -like reptile was related to the modern Tuatara in New Zealand. Fossils of some other reptiles, including armored herbivores, a large fish -eating amphibian and various fish, including freshwater sharks, were also found.
The largest predators in the ecosystem were crocc -related, the maybe 20 meters long, larger, larger, larger than the carnivorous dinosaurs who lived in this part of the world at that time. On land was a four -legged carnivorous reptile of a group called Rauisuchian. In the rivers, a half-aquatic carnivores lived from a group called Phytosaurier, which was built like a crocodile, but with certain differences, like nostril at the top of the head than at the end of the snout.
Rauisuchian, phytosaurs and some other lines represented in the fossils disappeared into end-t-triads. Frogs and turtles are still there today, while Pterosaur dominated the sky until the asteroid influence 66 million years ago, which ended the age of the dinosaurs.
“The place captures the transition to modern terrestrial vertebrate communities,” said Kligman.
