A skeleton from the Middle Jurassic of Scotland illuminates an earlier origin of large pterosaurs
Resource type
Journal article
Date published
February 22, 2022
Abstract
Pterosaurs were the first vertebrates to evolve flight1,2 and include the largest flying animals in Earth history.3,4 While some of the last-surviving species were the size of airplanes, pterosaurs were long thought
to be restricted to small body sizes (wingspans ca. <1.8–1.6 m) from their Triassic origins through the
Jurassic, before increasing in size when derived long-skulled and short-tailed pterodactyloids lived alongside a diversity of birds in the Cretaceous.5 We report a new spectacularly preserved three-dimensional skeleton from the Middle Jurassic of Scotland, which we assign to a new genus and species: Dearc sgiathanach
gen. et sp. nov. Its wingspan is estimated at >2.5 m, and bone histology shows it was a juvenile-subadult still
actively growing when it died, making it the largest known Jurassic pterosaur represented by a well-preserved skeleton. A review of fragmentary specimens from the Middle Jurassic of England demonstrates
that a diversity of pterosaurs was capable of reaching larger sizes at this time but have hitherto been concealed by a poor fossil record. Phylogenetic analysis places D. sgiathanach in a clade of basal long-tailed
non-monofenestratan pterosaurs, in a subclade of larger-bodied species (Angustinaripterini) with elongate
skulls convergent in some aspects with pterodactyloids.6 Far from a static prologue to the Cretaceous,
the Middle Jurassic was a key interval in pterosaur evolution, in which some non-pterodactyloids diversified
and experimented with larger sizes, concurrent with or perhaps earlier than the origin of birds
Journal title
Current Biology
Volume
32
Publisher
Elsevier BV
ISSN
0960-9822
Official URL
Rights statement
In Copyright