How pterosaurs learned flying, new research

This 2017 video is a documentary about pterosaurs.

From the University of Reading in England:

Giant lizards learnt to fly over millions of years

Study uses new method to show that Pterosaurs became twice as good at flying over their existence

October 28, 2020

Pterodactyls and other related winged reptiles that lived alongside the dinosaurs steadily improved their ability to fly to become the deadly masters of the sky over the course of millions of years.

A new study published in the journal Nature has shown that pterosaurs — a group of creatures that became Earth’s first flying vertebrates — evolved to improve their flight performance over their 150 million-year existence, before they went extinct at the same time as the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.

Scientists from the Universities of Reading, Lincoln and Bristol carried out the most detailed study yet into how animals evolve to become better suited to their environments over time. They combined fossil records with a new model of flight based on today’s living birds to measure their flight efficiency and fill in the gaps in our knowledge of their evolutionary story.

This allowed the scientists to track the gradual evolution of pterosaurs and demonstrate that they became twice as good at flying over the course of their history. It also showed that their evolution was caused by consistent small improvements over a long period, rather than sudden evolutionary bursts as had been previously suggested.

Professor Chris Venditti, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading and lead author of the study, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, said: “Pterosaurs were a diverse group of winged lizards, with some the size of sparrows and others with the wingspan of a light aircraft. Fans of the movie Jurassic World will have seen a dramatisation of just how huge and lethal these creatures would have been. Their diet consisted mostly of other animals, from insects to smaller dinosaurs.

“Despite their eventual prowess in the air being well-known, the question of whether pterosaurs got better at flying and whether this gave them an advantage over their ancestors has puzzled scientists for decades. There are many examples of how natural selection works on relatively short time scales, but until now it has been very difficult to demonstrate whether plants or animals adapt to become more efficient over a long period.”

New pterosaur species discovery in Morocco

This 16 October 2020 video, in Vietnamese, is about the discovery of the new pterosaur species Leptostomia begaaensis.

From the University of Portsmouth in England:

Beak bone reveals pterosaur like no other

October 14, 2020

A new species of small pterosaur — similar in size to a turkey — has been discovered, which is unlike any other pterosaur seen before due to its long slender toothless beak.

The fossilised piece of beak was a surprising find and was initially assumed to be part of the fin spine of a fish, but a team of palaeontologists from the universities of Portsmouth and Bath spotted the unusual texture of the bone — seen only in pterosaurs — and realised it was a piece of beak.

Professor David Martill of the University of Portsmouth, who co-authored the study, said: “We’ve never seen anything like this little pterosaur before. The bizarre shape of the beak was so unique, at first the fossils weren’t recognised as a pterosaur.”

Careful searching of the late Cretaceous Kem Kem strata of Morocco, where this particular bone was found, revealed additional fossils of the animal, which led to the team concluding it was a new species with a long, skinny beak, like that of a Kiwi. …

The new species, Leptostomia begaaensis, used its beak to probe dirt and mud for hidden prey, hunting like present-day sandpipers or kiwis to find worms, crustaceans, and perhaps even small hard-shelled clams. …

Dr Nick Longrich, from the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath, said: “Leptostomia may actually have been a fairly common pterosaur, but it’s so strange — people have probably been finding bits of this beast for years, but we didn’t know what they were until now.”

Long, slender beaks evolved in many modern birds. Those most similar to Leptostomia are probing birds — like sandpipers, kiwis, curlews, ibises and hoopoes. Some of these birds forage in earth for earthworms while others forage along beaches and tidal flats, feeding on bristle worms, fiddler crabs, and small clams.

“Pterosaur fossils typically preserve in watery settings — seas, lakes, and lagoons — because water carries sediments to bury bones. Pterosaurs flying over water to hunt for fish tend to fall in and die, so they’re common as fossils. Pterosaurs hunting along the margins of the water will preserve more rarely, and many from inland habitats may never preserve as fossils at all.

“There’s a similar pattern in birds. If all we had of birds was their fossils, we’d probably think that birds were mostly aquatic things like penguins, puffins, ducks and albatrosses. Even though they’re a minority of the species, their fossil record is a lot better than for land birds like hummingbirds, hawks, and ostriches.”

Over time, more and more species of pterosaurs with diverse lifestyles have been discovered. That trend, the new pterosaur suggests, is likely to continue.

The paper was published today in Cretaceous Research.

Did dinosaur age pterosaurs have feathers?

This December 2018 video says about itself:

Feathers might have originated tens of millions of years before we’d thought, and a 3D rendering of ankylosaur nasal passages lends new insight into how they stayed cool.

From the University of Portsmouth in England:

Evidence that prehistoric flying reptiles probably had feathers refuted

September 28, 2020

Summary: Experts have examined the evidence that prehistoric flying reptiles called pterosaurs had feathers and believe they were, in fact, bald.

The debate about when dinosaurs developed feathers has taken a new turn with a paper refuting earlier claims that feathers were also found on dinosaurs’ relatives, the flying reptiles called pterosaurs.

Pterosaur expert Dr David Unwin from the University of Leicester’s Centre for Palaeobiology Research, and Professor Dave Martill, of the University of Portsmouth have examined the evidence that these creatures had feathers and believe they were in fact bald.

They have responded to a suggestion by a group of his colleagues led by Zixiao Yang that some pterosaur fossils show evidence of feather-like branching filaments, ‘protofeathers’, on the animal’s skin.

Dr Yang, from Nanjing University, and colleagues presented their argument in a 2018 paper in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. Now Unwin and Martill, have offered an alternative, non-feather explanation for the fossil evidence in the same journal.

While this may seem like academic minutiae, it actually has huge palaeontological implications. Feathered pterosaurs would mean that the very earliest feathers first appeared on an ancestor shared by both pterosaurs and dinosaurs, since it is unlikely that something so complex developed separately in two different groups of animals.

This would mean that the very first feather-like elements evolved at least 80 million years earlier than currently thought. It would also suggest that all dinosaurs started out with feathers, or protofeathers but some groups, such as sauropods, subsequently lost them again — the complete opposite of currently accepted theory.

The evidence rests on tiny, hair-like filaments, less than one-tenth of a millimetre in diameter, which have been identified in about 30 pterosaur fossils. Among these, Yang and colleagues were only able to find just three specimens on which these filaments seem to exhibit a ‘branching structure’ typical of protofeathers.

Unwin and Martill propose that these are not protofeathers at all but tough fibres which form part of the internal structure of the pterosaur’s wing membrane, and that the ‘branching’ effect may simply be the result of these fibres decaying and unravelling.

Dr Unwin said: “The idea of feathered pterosaurs goes back to the nineteenth century but the fossil evidence was then, and still is, very weak. Exceptional claims require exceptional evidence — we have the former, but not the latter.”

Professor Martill noted that either way, palaeontologists will have to carefully reappraise ideas about the ecology of these ancient flying reptiles. He said, “If they really did have feathers, how did that make them look, and did they exhibit the same fantastic variety of colours exhibited by birds. And if they didn’t have feathers, then how did they keep warm at night, what limits did this have on their geographic range, did they stay away from colder northern climes as most reptiles do today. And how did they thermoregulate? The clues are so cryptic, that we are still a long way from working out just how these amazing animals worked.”

The paper “No protofeathers on pterosaurs” is published this week in Nature Ecology and Evolution.

Small ancestor of dinosaurs and pterosaurs discovered

From the American Museum of Natural History in the USA:

A tiny ancient relative of dinosaurs and pterosaurs discovered

New study suggests a miniaturized origin for some of the largest animals ever to live on Earth

July 6, 2020

Dinosaurs and flying pterosaurs may be known for their remarkable size, but a newly described species from Madagascar that lived around 237 million years ago suggests that they originated from extremely small ancestors. The fossil reptile, named Kongonaphon kely, or “tiny bug slayer”, would have stood just 10 centimeters (or about 4 inches) tall. The description and analysis of this fossil and its relatives, published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may help explain the origins of flight in pterosaurs, the presence of “fuzz” on the skin of both pterosaurs and dinosaurs, and other questions about these charismatic animals.

“There’s a general perception of dinosaurs as being giants,” said Christian Kammerer, a research curator in paleontology at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and a former Gerstner Scholar at the American Museum of Natural History. “But this new animal is very close to the divergence of dinosaurs and pterosaurs, and it’s shockingly small.”

Dinosaurs and pterosaurs both belong to the group Ornithodira. Their origins, however, are poorly known, as few specimens from near the root of this lineage have been found. The fossils of Kongonaphon were discovered in 1998 in Madagascar by a team of researchers led by American Museum of Natural History Frick Curator of Fossil Mammals John Flynn (who worked at The Field Museum at the time) in close collaboration with scientists and students at the University of Antananarivo, and project co-leader Andre Wyss, chair and professor of the University of California-Santa Barbara’s Department of Earth Science and an American Museum of Natural History research associate.

“This fossil site in southwestern Madagascar from a poorly known time interval globally has produced some amazing fossils, and this tiny specimen was jumbled in among the hundreds we’ve collected from the site over the years,” Flynn said. “It took some time before we could focus on these bones, but once we did, it was clear we had something unique and worth a closer look. This is a great case for why field discoveries — combined with modern technology to analyze the fossils recovered — is still so important.”

“Discovery of this tiny relative of dinosaurs and pterosaurs emphasizes the importance of Madagascar’s fossil record for improving knowledge of vertebrate history during times that are poorly known in other places,” said project co-leader Lovasoa Ranivoharimanana, professor and director of the vertebrate paleontology laboratory at the University of Antananarivo in Madagascar. “Over two decades, our collaborative Madagascar-U.S. teams have trained many Malagasy students in paleontological sciences, and discoveries like this helps people in Madagascar and around the world better appreciate the exceptional record of ancient life preserved in the rocks of our country.”

Kongonaphon isn’t the first small animal known near the root of the ornithodiran family tree, but previously, such specimens were considered “isolated exceptions to the rule,” Kammerer noted. In general, the scientific thought was that body size remained similar among the first archosaurs — the larger reptile group that includes birds, crocodilians, non-avian dinosaurs, and pterosaurs — and the earliest ornithodirans, before increasing to gigantic proportions in the dinosaur lineage.

“Recent discoveries like Kongonaphon have given us a much better understanding of the early evolution of ornithodirans. Analyzing changes in body size throughout archosaur evolution, we found compelling evidence that it decreased sharply early in the history of the dinosaur-pterosaur lineage,” Kammerer said.

This “miniaturization” event indicates that the dinosaur and pterosaur lineages originated from extremely small ancestors yielding important implications for their paleobiology. For instance, wear on the teeth of Kongonaphon suggests it ate insects. A shift to insectivory, which is associated with small body size, may have helped early ornithodirans survive by occupying a niche different from their mostly meat-eating contemporaneous relatives.

The work also suggests that fuzzy skin coverings ranging from simple filaments to feathers, known on both the dinosaur and pterosaur sides of the ornithodiran tree, may have originated for thermoregulation in this small-bodied common ancestor. That’s because heat retention in small bodies is difficult, and the mid-late Triassic was a time of climatic extremes, inferred to have sharp shifts in temperature between hot days and cold nights.

Sterling Nesbitt, an assistant professor at Virginia Tech and a Museum research associate and expert in ornithodiran anatomy, phylogeny, and histological age analyses, is also an author on this study.

This study was supported, in part, by the National Geographic Society, a Gerstner Scholars Fellowship from the Gerstner Family Foundation and the Richard Gilder Graduate School, the Division of Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History, and a Meeker Family Fellowship from the Field Museum, with additional support from the Ministry of Energy and Mines of Madagascar, the World Wide Fund for Nature (Madagascar), University of Antananarivo, and MICET/ICTE (Madagascar).

Unique pterodactyl fossil discovery in England

This 2015 video says about itself:

“Tapejaridae” are a family of pterodactyloid pterosaurs from the early Cretaceous period. Members are currently known from Brazil, Morocco, Spain and China, where the most primitive genera are found, indicating that the family has an Asian origin.

From the University of Portsmouth in England:

Chinese pterodactyl wings its way to the United Kingdom

May 28, 2020

The first-ever specimen of a pterodactyl, more commonly found in China and Brazil, has been found in the United Kingdom.

A fossil hunter recently discovered a peculiar shaped fragment of fossil bone while out walking his dog in Sandown Bay on the Isle of Wight.

Not sure what it was, he passed it to University of Portsmouth Palaeontology student Megan Jacobs, who thought it might be the jaw bone from a pterodactyl. Further research proved she was right.

However, this was no ordinary pterodactyl jaw. This one lacked teeth and was remarkably similar to a bizarre group of pterosaurs called ‘tapejarids‘. They are better known from China and Brazil and have never previously been found in the UK.

Just last year a team from the University of Portsmouth discovered as similar specimen in North Africa (Morocco) which they named Afrotapejara.

The new specimen from the Isle of Wight has been named Wightia declivirostris.

Megan Jacobs said: “Although only a fragment of jaw, it has all the characteristic of a tapejarid jaw, including numerous tiny little holes that held minute sensory organs for detecting their food, and a downturned, finely pointed beak.

“Complete examples from Brazil and China show that they had large head crests, with the crest sometime being twice as big as the skull. The crests were probably used in sexual display and may have been brightly coloured.”

The researchers determined that the Isle of Wight example seemed more closely related to the Chinese tapejarids rather than the Brazilian examples.

Co-author of the study Professor David Martill, a palaeontologist from the University of Portsmouth, said: “This new species adds to the diversity of dinosaurs and other prehistoric reptiles found on the Island, which is now one of the most important places for Cretaceous dinosaurs in the world.”

The finder has kindly donated the specimen to Dinosaur Isle Museum at Sandown, where it is hoped it will go on display in the future.

Pterosaurs and airplanes, new research

This 2014 video says about itself:

How Were Pterosaurs Adapted for Flight?

Pterosaurs were the first animals after insects to evolve powered flight—not just leaping or gliding, but flapping their wings to generate lift and travel through the air. They evolved into dozens of species: Some were as large as an F-16 fighter jet, and others as small as a paper airplane.

Pterosaurs flew with their forelimbs: Their long, tapering wings evolved from the same body part as our arms. As pterosaurs’ arm and hand bones evolved for flying, they lengthened, and the bones of one finger—the equivalent of our ring finger—became extraordinarily long. Like the mast on a ship, these bones supported the wing surface, a thin flap of skin that was shaped like a sail.

Although many animals can glide through the air, pterosaurs, birds and bats are the only vertebrates that have evolved to fly by flapping their wings. All three groups descended from animals that lived on the ground, and their wings evolved in a similar way: their forelimbs gradually became long, bladelike and aerodynamic.

Although they have much in common, pterosaurs, birds and bats developed the ability to fly independently. Their wings evolved along different paths, and the difference can be seen in their structure.

From ScienceDaily:

Pterosaurs and other fossil flyers to better engineer human-made flight

April 15, 2020

Pterosaurs were the largest animals ever to fly. They soared the skies for 160 million years — much longer than any species of modern bird. Despite their aeronautic excellence, these ancient flyers have largely been overlooked in the pursuit of bioinspired flight technologies. In a review published April 15 in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution researchers outline why and how the physiology of fossil flyers could provide ancient solutions to modern flight problems, such as aerial stability and the ability of drones to self-launch.

“There’s a lot of really cool stuff in the fossil record that goes unexplored because engineers generally don’t look to paleontology when thinking about inspiration for flight,” says first author Liz Martin-Silverstone (@gimpasaura), a post-doctoral researcher and paleontologist at the University of Bristol. “If we’re only looking at modern animals for inspiration, we’re really missing a large degree of the morphology out there and ignoring a lot of options that I think could be useful.”

Previously, engineers have largely focused on the physiology of modern birds and insects when designing aeronautic technology like drones and planes; they might not think to examine fossils that — by their nature — are often incomplete. However, Martin-Silverstone says there are a select few pterosaur fossils that provide extraordinarily deep insight into the anatomy of their wings, which is essential for understanding their flight capabilities.

“There are two or three absolutely amazingly preserved pterosaur fossils that let you see the different layers within the wing membrane, giving us insight into its fibrous components. Also, some fossils are preserved enough to show the wing attachments beneath the hip,” she says. “While you don’t know exactly the shape of the wing, by knowing the membrane attachments you can model the effectiveness of different wing shapes and determine which would have performed best in natural conditions.” Analyzing the morphology and predicted flight mechanics of these ancient creatures has revealed novel tactics that don’t exist in modern flyers.

Becoming airborne is one example. Launching into the air through a leap or jump, also known as ballistic launch, is standard throughout the animal kingdom. However, larger birds require a running start to gain enough momentum for lift-off. Pterosaurs, on the other hand, may have developed a method to launch from a stationary position despite some specimens weighing nearly 300 kilograms. One hypothesis, proposed by review co-author Mike Habib (@aeroevo) of the Dinosaur Institute at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, suggests that the wing membrane and the robust muscle attachments in the wings allowed pterosaurs to generate a high-powered leap off of their elbows and wrists, giving them enough height to become airborne.

“Today, something like a drone requires a flat surface to launch and is quite restricted on how it actually gets into the air. The unique launch physiology of pterosaurs might be able to help solve some of these problems,” Martin-Silverstone says.

Pterosaurs can also provide insights on how to prevent flight instability once in the air. Contrary to how sails can become unstable in a strong wind, pterosaurs evolved strategies to resist flutter of their broad wings. “So far we’ve struggled to design things like flight suits that can resist the pressures of flight. If we can understand how pterosaurs did it, for instance by understanding how their wing membrane was actually structured, then that’s something we can use to answer modern engineering questions,” she says.

These unique physiological elements aren’t limited to pterosaurs, either. Other ancient flyers, like Microraptor, had feathered wings on both their arms and legs, while newly discovered dinosaur, Yi qi, had wings that combine feathers with a bat-like membrane — a body plan that has never been repeated since their extinction. As such, the authors say many flight strategies remain to be properly explored.

Martin-Silverstone suggests that if we combine our knowledge from flyers both living and extinct, we will have a much better chance of overcoming the hurdles still hindering human-made flight. She says: “We want biologists and engineers alike to reach out to paleontologists when they are looking to solving flight problems, as there might be something extinct that could help. If we limit ourselves to looking at the modern animals, then we’re missing out on a lot of diversity that might be useful.”

New Moroccan pterosaur species discovery, again

This 2012 video says about itself:

Reptiles of the Skies | Walking with Dinosaurs in HQ | BBC

The Cretaceous period saw the breaking up of the northern and southern landmasses. Flying dinosaurs like Tapejara would master the air and the new coastlines of prehistoric Earth. The largest flying dinosaur Ornithocheirus prepares for a long flight to breeding grounds.

Broadcast in 1999, Walking with Dinosaurs set out to create the most accurate portrayal of prehistoric animals ever seen on the screen. Combining fact and informed speculation with cutting-edge computer graphics and animatronics effects, the series took two years to make.

Pterosaurs were not ‘flying dinosaurs’, though related to dinosaurs.

From the University of Portsmouth in England:

Fourth new pterosaur discovery in matter of weeks

April 2, 2020

You wait ages for a pterosaur and then four come along at once.

Hot on the heels of a recent paper discovering three new species of pterosaur, University of Portsmouth palaeobiologists have identified another new species — the first of its kind to be found on African soil.

Pterosaurs are the less well-known cousins of dinosaurs. They had adept flying ability — some as large as a fighter jet and others as small as a model aeroplane.

The new species belongs to a group of pterosaurs called tapejarids from the Cretaceous period. Tapejarids were small to medium-sized pterosaurs with wingspans perhaps as wide as four metres, most of which had large, broad crests sweeping up from the front of the skull.

They are well known in Brazil and China, and specimens have also been discovered in Europe, but this is the first time the flying reptile has been found in Africa.

It differs from the three recent species discovered as this one had no teeth — it was ‘edentulous’.

Professor David Martill, from the University’s School of the Environment, Geography and Geosciences, led the study. He said: “The study of Moroccan material shows that we are still far from having found all the paleontological treasures of North Africa. Even fragmentary fossils, like the jaw piece of the new pterosaur, can give us important information about the biodiversity of the past.”

PhD student Roy Smith, one of the co-authors, said: “I feel very privileged to be part of such an exciting discovery. Working in the Sahara was a life-changing experience, and discovering a new species of pterosaur is the icing on the cake.”

The new pterosaur has been named Afrotapejara zouhrii to honour the Moroccan palaeontologist Professor Samir Zouhri. Originally a mammal specialist, Zouhri also contributed to several discoveries of prehistoric reptiles in Morocco, including dinosaurs and pterosaurs.

Professor Martill said: “The opportunity to illuminate the diversity of pterosaurs in Africa while honouring a colleague does not happen every day.”

The research team included Dr David Unwin from the University of Leicester and Dr Nizar Ibrahim from the University of Detroit Mercy.

Palaeontologist Dr Ibrahim, said: “Samir Zouhri has played an important role in the development of Moroccan palaeontology, not only through his publications, but also because he organised scientific conferences in Morocco and edited an entire volume for the Geological Society of France on the subject of vertebrate palaeontology in Morocco.”

The fossil material is part of the collections of the Faculty of Sciences Aïn Chock, Casablanca Hassan II University and the paper was published in Cretaceous Research.

Cretaceous pterosaurs discovery in Morocco

This October 2018 video is called Pterosaurs 101 | National Geographic.

From Baylor University in the USA:

Fossil finds give clues about flying reptiles in the Sahara 100 million years ago

Fish-eating pterosaurs with wingspans of up to 13 feet soared and snatched prey

March 25, 2020

Three new species of toothed pterosaurs — flying reptiles of the Cretaceous period, some 100 million years ago — have been identified in Africa by an international team of scientists led by Baylor University.

The pterosaurs, which soared above a world dominated by predators, formed part of an ancient river ecosystem in Africa that teemed with life including fish, crocodiles, turtles and several predatory dinosaurs.

“Pterosaur remains are very rare, with most known from Europe, South America and Asia. These new finds are very exciting and provide a window into the world of pterosaurs in Cretaceous Africa,” said lead author Megan L. Jacobs, a doctoral candidate in geosciences at Baylor University.

The study, published in the journal Cretaceous Research, is helping to uncover the poorly known evolutionary history of Africa during the time of the dinosaurs. The research finds that African pterosaurs were quite similar to those found on other continents. Their world included crocodile-like hunters and carnivorous dinosaurs, with few herbivores. Many predators, including the toothed pterosaurs, preyed on a superabundance of fish.

“For such large animals, they would have weighed very little,” Jacobs said. “Their wingspans were around 10 to 13 feet, with their bones almost paper-thin and full of air, very similar to birds. This allowed these awesome creatures to reach incredible sizes and still be able to take off and soar the skies.”

Pterosaurs snatched up their prey while on the wing, using a set of large spike-like teeth to grab. Large pterosaurs such as these would have been able to forage over hundreds of miles, with fossil evidence showing they flew between South America and Africa, similar to present-day birds such as condors and albatrosses, researchers said.

The specimens — identified by researchers from chunks of jaws with teeth — were obtained from fossil miners in a small village called Beggaa, just outside Erfoud in southeast Morocco. These villagers daily climb halfway up the side of a large escarpment, known as the Kem Kem beds, to a layer of a coarse sand, the most fossiliferous bed.

“They excavate everything they find, from teeth to bones to almost complete skeletons,” Jacobs said. “They then sell their finds to dealers and scientists who conduct fieldwork, ensuring the villagers make enough money to survive while we get new fossils to describe. These pterosaur fragments are unique and can be identified easily — if you know what to look for.”

One of the species, Anhanguera, previously was only known to be from Brazil. Another, Ornithocheirus, had until now only been found in England and Middle Asia.

This year’s find brings to five the total of toothed pterosaurs whose remains have been found in the Kem Kem beds, with the first described in the 1990s and the second one last year, Jacobs said. The specimens will be part of an acquisition in a museum in Morocco.

How Jurassic pterosaurs fed, new research

This video is called TRILOGY OF LIFE – Walking with Dinosaurs – “Ramphorhynchus“.

By John Pickrell, January 27, 2020 at 5:00 am:

A squid fossil offers a rare record of pterosaur feeding behavior

A tooth embedded in a squid fossil tells a story of a battle at sea with the flying reptile

A fossil of a squid with a pterosaur tooth embedded in it offers extraordinary evidence of a 150-million-year-old battle at sea. While many pterosaur fossils containing fish scales and bones in their stomachs have revealed that some of these flying reptiles included fish in their diet, the new find from Germany is the first proof that pterosaurs also hunted squid.

The fossil was excavated in 2012 in the Solnhofen Limestone, near Eichstätt in Bavaria, where many Jurassic Period fossils of pterosaurs, small dinosaurs and the earliest known bird, Archaeopteryx, have been found. The region’s environment at the time was something like the Bahamas today, with low-lying islands dotting shallow tropical seas.

The embedded tooth fits the right size and shape for the pterosaur Rhamphorhynchus, paleontologists report online January 27 in Scientific Reports. They argue that the tooth was left by a pterosaur that swooped to the ocean surface to snap up the 30-centimeter-long squid from the extinct Plesioteuthis genus, but was unsuccessful, possibly because the squid was too large or too far down in the water column for the predator to manage.

“The Plesioteuthis squid wrestled it off and escaped, breaking at least one tooth off the pterosaur, which became lodged in [the squid’s] mantle,” says Jordan Bestwick, a paleontologist at the University of Leicester in England. “This fossil is important in helping us understand the dietary range of Rhamphorhynchus, and tells us about its hunting behavior.”

The fossil itself is unique, according to pterosaur researcher Taíssa Rodrigues at the Federal University of Espírito Santo in Vitorio, Brazil, who was not involved in the study. “It is very rare to find predator-prey interactions that include pterosaurs,” she says. “In the few cases we do have, pterosaurs were the prey of large fish. So it is great to see this the other way around.”

Paleontologist Michael Habib of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles says he suspects the squid was far too large for the pterosaur to haul out of the water. “The pterosaur was lucky that the tooth broke off,” says Habib, who was not involved with the study. “A squid of that size could probably have pulled it under.”

How pterosaurs started flying

This 18 August 2019 video saysabout itself:

How Pterosaurs Got Their Wings

When pterosaurs first took flight, you could say that it marked the beginning of the end for the winged reptiles. Because, strangely enough, the power of flight — and the changes that it led to — may have ultimately led to their downfall.

Thanks to Ceri Thomas for the excellent Scleromochlus illustration!