The fossil of an enormous flying dinosaur that was found in the northwestern part of North America nearly three decades ago, has been identified. While there are an estimated 200 different kinds of pterosaur, this one, in particular, is of an entirely new genus. Dubbed Cryodrakon boreas, this large reptilian bird is said to have lived during the Cretaceous period, about 76 million years ago, in what is now Alberta, Canada.
"The animal, when alive, would not have been a frozen dragon," notes study coauthor Mike Habib, a paleontologist at the University of Southern California. "It would have been flying in a landscape that would have been reasonably temperate ... but a hell of a lot warmer than central Alberta is now."
Scientists have been examining, comparing, and reexamining the remains for a very long time.
"For me, as a Canadian who also works on pterosaurs, it's pretty cool to get an actual name for an animal that's been kicking around for a while," says paleontologist Liz Martin-Silverstone, a research associate at the University of Bristol who had no involvement in the findings.
During those years of studying the fossils, scientists believed that the creature belonged to a species of pterosaur called Quetzalcoatlus northropi, a sub-species of the azhdarchid, as the specimens are very similar in body composition.
Azhdarchid are made up of mainly head and neck, with specimens of Q. northropi exhibiting enormous wingspans and when standing upright could have reached heights of nearly eight feet. Q. Northrop's fossils were discovered much further south, in Texas, which means that North America had at least two different species of giant pterosaurs.
The defining characteristic of a species of pterosaurs are small cavities in the neck vertebra, or pneumatophores, the holes through which air sacs once entered the bone's interior. Upon closer examination, researchers realized that Cryodrakon's had a unique arrangement, therefore separating it from other azhdarchid species.
