Fossilized Bones of Flying Dino-Age Reptile Discovered

Scientists have discovered the fossilized bones of a new kind of pterosaur, a flying reptile from the time of the dinosaurs.

The new species of pterosaur, named Eurazhdarcho langendorfensis, lived about 68 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period. The skeletal remains of the pterosaur were found in Sebeş-Glod in Transylvanian Basin, Romania. The area is world-famous for its many Late Cretaceous fossils, ranging from dinosaur fossils to turtles and ancient relatives of crocodiles.

Eurazhdarcho belongs to a group of pterosaurs called the azhdarchids. They possessed a long neck and beak, and had a wingspan of nearly 10 feet (three meters). According to the researchers, the wings of these pterosaurs were strongly adapted for a soaring lifestyle. "With a three-meter wingspan, Eurazhdarcho would have been large, but not gigantic. This is true of many of the animals so far discovered in Romania; they were often unusually small compared to their relatives elsewhere," Darren Naish, from the University of Southampton's Vertebrate Paleontology Research Group, said in a statement.

Eurazhdarcho had several features of their wing and hind limb bones which showed that the reptiles could fold their wings and walk on all fours when needed. The discovery brings new evidence to the debate about the behavior of these types of creatures. "Experts have argued for years over the lifestyle and behavior of azhdarchids. It has been suggested that they grabbed prey from the water while in flight, that they patrolled wetlands and hunted in a heron or stork-like fashion, or that they were like gigantic sandpipers, hunting by pushing their long bills into mud," said Gareth Dyke, senior lecturer in Vertebrate Paleontology, based at the National Oceanography Centre Southampton.

The fossils of Eurazhdarcho were found alongside dinosaurs and other terrestrial animals in inland, continental environment where there were forests, large rivers and swampy regions. The discovery suggests a new idea that the azhdarchids walked through forests and plains in search of small animal prey.

The findings of the study appear in the journal PLOS ONE.