Researchers discovered the earliest-known pterodactyl that flew the skies 163 million years ago.
The fossil was discovered in northwestern China, the research team named the new species Kryptodrakon progenitor, a George Washington University news release reported.
"This finding represents the earliest and most primitive pterodactyloid pterosaur, a flying reptile in a highly specialized group that includes the largest flying organisms," says Chris Liu, program director in the National Science Foundation's Division of Earth Sciences. "The research has extended the fossil record of pterodactyloids by at least five million years to the Middle-Upper Jurassic boundary about 163 million years ago."
The Kryptodrakon progenitor is believed the have "lived and developed" in a terrestrial environment rather than in a marine one where other specimens have been found.
The creature had a wingspan of four and a half feet; these pterosaur would eventually evolve to be as large as planes. The new fossil could help researchers gain insight into the evolution of the creatures, which went extinct about 66 million years ago.
"He (Kryptodrakon progenitor) fills in a very important gap in the history of pterosaurs," University of South Florida (USF) paleontologist Brian Andres said in the news release."With him, they could walk and fly in whole new ways."
The fossil was found on the Shishugou Formation of northwest China, which is known by scientists as the "dinosaur death pits" because they were once full of deadly quicksand.
"Kryptodrakon is the second pterosaur species we've discovered in the Shishugou Formation and deepens our understanding of this unusually diverse Jurassic ecosystem," James Clark of the GW Columbian College of Arts and Sciences said in the news release."It is rare for small, delicate fossils to be preserved in Jurassic terrestrial deposits, and the Shishugou fauna is giving us a glimpse of what was living alongside the behemoths like Mamenchisaurus."
