The new Pterosaur was named Eotephradactylus McIntireae. Credit: Smithsoniana
Flying reptiles floating above dinosaurs were discovered at least 200 million years ago. It is a new species of palace discovered by scientists in Arizona in 2011. However, due to the limited technology available at the time, they were not aware of all the features that the Eotephradactylus McIntiraae had.
The name of the dinosaur, which is difficult to pronounce, means “The Goddess of the Dawn of Ashes,” named by a research team studying creatures at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC.
Scientists also pointed out that the name is a reference to volcanic ash, which helps maintain bones in the ancient riverbed.
There are all the details about this charming and flying “monster” Published National Academy of Sciences Magazine Proceedings, BBC It has been reported.
“The bones of Triassic palaces are small, thin and often hollow, so they are destroyed before they can be fossilized,” said Dr. Ben T. Krigman, one of the authors of the study, which detailed the findings.
Early pterosaurs discovered so far
Krigman said about 229 million years ago that this is now considered to be the earliest palace seen in North America. The location of the discovery is a fossil layer in an ancient rocky desert landscape within the petrified Forest National Park, he added.
When the “Ash Winged Goddess of Dawn” flew around the Arizona sky, the place was at the riverbed, and layers of sediment gradually became trapped, evidence of preserved bones, scales, and other life. The river ran through the central region of the Pangaea supercontinent, formed from all the lands of the Earth.
“Our ability to recognize palace bones in (these ancient) river deposits suggests that there may be other similar deposits from Triassic rocks around the world.
Studying Pterosaur’s teeth also provided clues about what a gull-sized winged reptile ate. “They have unusually high wear on their tips,” explained Dr. Krigman, suggesting that the palace is eating something that has complex body parts. ”
They probably ate primitive fish
He told BBC News that his most likely prey was a primitive fish, covered in bone-scale armor.
“We see a group that thrived later with older animals not past the Triassic,” he said. “Such a fossil bed can establish that all of these animals live together.”
Last month, scientists made another fascinating discovery. They misclassified Labrador-sized dinosaurs when they were discovered. It is a newly discovered species.
Its new name is Enigmacursor, meaning “an inexplicable runner,” and ran around the feet of famous giants like Stegosaurus about 150 million years ago.
Dog-sized dinosaur
According to Professor Paul Barrett, a paleontologist at the Museum of Natural History (NHM) in London, the discovery promises to shed light on the evolutionary history of early tiny dinosaurs that became very large and “strange” animals.
Enigmacursor is smaller than that. It is a Labrador height of 64 cm tall and 180 cm long, but has a much larger foot and a tail “probably longer than the rest of the dinosaur.” The label indicates that the dinosaur is 0.64 meters tall and 1.8 meters long.
Enigmacursor was a small dinosaur that lived with some of the most famous.
“It was probably not the brightest one, as it also had a relatively small head,” Professor Maid said. When it died, it was probably a teenager, she added.
“Here we can see a solid, dense waist that shows it is a rapidly running dinosaur. However, the arms at the front are much smaller and off the ground. We probably used them to squeeze plants in our mouths with our hands.” “Samples like this help fill in some of those gaps in our knowledge, showing how those changes gradually occur over time.”