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Victoria Gill
A scientific correspondent, BBC NEWS
SmithsonianScientists have discovered a new type of pterosaurus – a flying reptile that flew over dinosaurs more than 200 million years ago.
The jaw bone of the ancient reptile was excavated in Arizona back in 2011, but modern scanning methods revealed the details indicating that it belongs to a new species in science.
A research team led by the Smithson National Museum of Natural History in Washington, called the Eotephradactylus Mcintiree, which means “the goddess of the ashes”.
This is a reference to volcanic ash that helped keep its bones in the ancient direction.
Suzanna MacintraDetails of the opening are Published in the magazine Materials of the National Academy of Sciences.
About 209 million years, it is believed to be the earliest pterosaurus that can be found in North America.
“The bones of the trianchy pterosauri are small, thin and often hollow, so they are destroyed before they are petrified,” the cligman explained.
The site of this opening is a fossil bed in the deserted landscape of the ancient rock in the National Park “Forest Forest”.
More than 200 million years ago, this place was a channel, and the layers of the sediment gradually trapped and the bones, scales and other evidence of life at the time.
The river went through the central region of what was a supercantinentian Pangeo, which was formed from all the land.
Pterosaurus jaw is just one part of the fossils found in the same place, including bones, teeth, fish scales and even fossilized PU (also known as co -sulls).
D -R -Kligman said: “Our ability to recognize the bones of the pterosaurus in (these ancient) deposits of the river suggests that there may be other similar deposits from Triassian breeds around the world, which can also keep the bones of the pterosaurus.”
Ben KligmanThe study of Pterozaar’s teeth also gave a clue that he would eat winged reptile seagull.
“They have an extraordinarily high degree of wear on their tips,” Kligman explained. Assuming that this pterosaurus feeds on something with solid parts of the body. ”
The most likely prey, he said, BBC News were a primitive fish that would be covered in bone armor.
Scientists say the opening site has kept the “shooting” of the ecosystem where the animals that have now died out, including gigantic amphibians and ancient lack of relatives, lived with the animals that we could recognize today, including frogs and turtles.
This fossil bed, said the D -R Kligman, retained evidence of the evolutionary “transition” 200 million years ago.
“We see groups that bloom later, living next to the older animals, which (not) pass by Triacus.
“The rocky beds, like these, allow us to establish that all these animals actually lived together.”
