Well-Preserved Fossils of Flying Reptile Found in Rare Ancient Cemetery in Chile

Scientists in Chile reported having unearthed a rare ancient cemetery where fossils of flying reptiles that lived about 100 million years ago were buried. These flying reptiles are believed to have existed with the dinosaurs during the Jurassic period and roamed the Andean country's Atacama Desert, MailOnline reported.

The remains were identified to belong to pterosaurs, which is a kind of flying reptile that fed by filtering water through its long thin teeth like flamingos. The team of scientists from the University of Chile said that the discovery will help scientists understand the anatomy and habits of pterosaurs.

(Photo : Andreas Gebert/Getty Images)
A museum worker shows an original, 66 million year old lumber vertebra of what museum officials claim is the world's biggest discovered winged dinosaur prior to its exhibition at the Altmuehltal Dinosaur Museum on March 21, 2018 in Denkendorf, Germany.

Well-Preserved Fossils Give New Insights to the History of Pterosaurs

Jhonatan Alarcon, an investigator at the University of Chile, and his group have been searching for pterosaur fossils for many years. But their recent discovery surpassed their expectations.

Alarcon, who led the group, said that their findings have global relevance because finding these types of pterosaur fossils is so rare. As Reuters reported, most fossils found anywhere in the world were isolated, but the rare cemetery could help scientists study in-depth how pterosaurs lived in the past and whether they raised their babies or not.

Moreover, the unexpected discovery showed how well-preserved the pterosaur fossils were when they were discovered. Chile's Museum of National History head of paleontology David Rubilar said that ost pterosaur bones found were either flattened or broken. But the recently discovered fossils were still in their three-dimensional shape.

Researchers noted that this would help scientists better understand pterosaur anatomy. The remains were found in an area that would have been a tidal estuary of the Quebrada Monardes Formation in the Lower Cretaceous about 100 years ago. It is located only 40.39 miles (65 km) away from another site where pterosaurs once lived.

The fossils they found included four cervical vertebrae, wherein one of them belonged to a small pterosaur and the other three came from multiple species of pterosaurs. Researchers wrote in their study that this is the second geographic occurrence of pterosaurs of the clade Ctenochasmatidae in the Atacama region.

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Pterosaurs: One of Evolution's Great Success Stories

Paleontologist Keven Padian from the University of California, Berkeley told National Geographic that pterosaurs were the first vertebrates to fly and did it long before bats and birds ever soared into the sky. They pushed the limits as far as it could go for an animal that could fly.

He added that pterosaurs stand out as one of the great success stories of evolution like dinosaurs. These flying reptiles first emerged in the late Triassic period about 215 million years ago and thrived for 150 million years before going extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period.

Scientists said that the endurance of these ancient animals is almost inconceivable given that the ancestors of humans only started walking upright less than four million years ago. Since they were the only ones who could fly, they mainly colonized all continents and evolved in various shapes and sizes with over 120 named species. The smallest species was smaller than a sparrow, while the largest had a wingspan wider than an F-16 fighter or nearly 40 feet (12 meters).

Fossil discoveries have allowed scientists to examine pterosaurs and classify them as the same league as birds in terms of flying ability. More recent findings, such as the one in the Atacama Desert, reveal so much more about the flying reptiles.

 RELATED ARTICLE: Largest Flying Reptile Had a Wingspan Larger Than a King-Size Bed, Fossil Discovered in Scotland

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