US team discovers winged reptile that took powered flight with early dinosaurs

Yahoo

5 days ago

In a remote bonebed in Arizona, a Smithsonian team unearthed the oldest pterosaur on record and an entire ecosystem of fossils—over 200 million years old.
While looking for prehistoric precursors to mammals in Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, a Smithsonian-led team of researchers stumbled upon an unexpected site: a remote bonebed that contained an entire Triassic ecosystem.
Along with 1,200 individual fossils, they recovered a new pterosaur species that lived 209 million years ago. The recently identified Eotephradactylus mcintireae is the oldest pterosaur ever found in North America. Its teeth, preserved in the bone, gave paleontologists stunning insights into how the earliest pterosaurs lived.
Oldest pterosaur in North America was about the size of a seagull
Eotephradactylus mcintireae would have been small enough to perch on person's shoulder comfortably. It might not be be the largest pterosaur on record, but its impact might extend far beyond any discovered before it as the most ancient in North America.
Its name, 'ash-winged dawn goddess,' refers to the site's volcanic ash, the animals' position near the base of the pterosaur evolutionary tree, and the woman who unearthed it. Suzanne McIntire knew the tooth-studded jaw would make the animal easier to identify.
As the teeth were worn down, the team deduced the pterosaur likely fed on the site's fish, as they found many in the fossil bed encased in armor-like scales. In fact, the team led by paleontologist Ben Kligman found so much more than the world's oldest pterosaur on site.
After braving the Petrified Forest's rugged badlands, home to rattlesnakes and wild horses, they uncovered a bonebed that gave them a vivid snapshot of the dynamic ecosystem, including giant amphibians, armored crocodile relatives, evolutionary upstarts like frogs, and even the world's oldest turtle fossils.
'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,' Kligman said. 'Fossil beds like these enable us to establish that all of these animals actually lived together.'
A snapshot of end-Triassic extinction
The new site filled a gap in the fossil record: the end-Triassic extinction (ETE).
Around 201.5 million years ago, volcanic eruptions broke Pangaea and wiped out 75% of the planet's species, making way for the dinosaurs to rise and dominate the Earth. This new bonebed captured this critical moment in the planet's evolution. This pterosaur would have been among the first to take flight in history.
Though incredibly old, these rocks on Owl Rock Member, the park's geologic outcrops, are the youngest in the park. They are the least studied as they lurk in the park's most remote areas, but they might contain new species. The fossil bed Smithsonian researchers just uncovered did.
They believe a flood had most likely buried the creatures, as so many fossils were packed into the site. Excavating it was practically impossible. They encased large pieces of the surrounding sediment in plaster and brought them back to the lab, according to the press release.
In total, the team picked up more than a thousand individual fossils of bones, teeth, fish scales, and coprolites, or fossilized poop. In all, this impressive assemblage contained 16 different groups of vertebrate animals.
The pterosaur would have flown over a rich and diverse ecosystem of braided rivers filled with fish like freshwater sharks, coelacanths, and ancient amphibians, some of which grew up to 6 feet long.
The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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