Ikrandraco avatar was a flying reptile, with a five-foot wingspan, recently discovered in northeastern China.
Wang Xiaolin is a vertabrae paleontologist who led an excavation which discovered the 120 million year old fossil in Liaoning Province.
Ikrandraco avatar was named after the Ikran, flying reptile-like creatures from the movie Avatar. In the film, the Na'vi people have a traditional right of passage, mounting and flying one of the wild beasts from their roosting spot in the Hallelujah Mountains.
Researchers believe the ancient creature had a long, flattened skull, with a large swelling in the lower jaw, giving the real-life creature its resemblance to the fictional Ikran. This feature has never before been seen in any known pterosaur.
A pointed nose may have reduced air resistance for the animal in flight. Members of the species may have glided above water, skimming the surface with its jaw crest, collecting prey, in a manner similar to modern pelicans. Fish collected in this manner may have been stored in a throat pouch, before being chewed by a collection of sharp teeth.
"The particular skull shape hints at a distinct feeding habit for pterosaurs that potentially includes temporary skimming and an extensible skin acting as a throat pouch that was more developed than in any other pterosaur known so far," researchers wrote in an article in Scientific Reports detailing their discovery.
A pair of Ikrandraco avatar fossils were discovered in a rich fossil bed, providing paleontologists with a detailed record of the extinct animal.
Pterosaurs, relatives to true dinosaurs, ruled the ancient skies between 225 and 65 million years ago. This order of animals were the earliest-known vertebrates to develop powered flight. The earliest species of the animals sported long tails, and jaws full of teeth. As pterosaurs evolved, toothless varieties developed, and tails became smaller. Some varieties of the flying reptile were covered in hair-like fibers called pycnofibers.
The creatures are often refereed to as flying dinosaurs, which is not accurate. Many people also refer to all pterosaurs as pterodactyls, one species of the animal. They are more closely related to birds than to any reptile, past or present.
Ikrans in Avatar, written and directed by James Cameron, were based on the largest known pterosaur, Hatzegopteryx, possessing a wingspan of nearly 40 feet. Remains of that ancient species was first discovered in 2002, by paleontologists from France and Romania.
The Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) made the formal announcement of the discovery.
