Scientists discovered that animals resembling ikrans, the Pandoran bird-like aerial predators in James Cameron's movie “Avatar,” actually existed on Earth.
Researchers unearthed two partial skeletons of a 120-million-year-old winged reptile from a site in northeast China’s Liaoning province, a region in which several feathered dinosaurs have been discovered during the past decade.
A new study, published on Thursday, September 11 in Scientific Reports, details the discovery of this new species of pterosaur playfully named Ikrandraco avatar.
“The head structure is similar in this pterosaur to the Ikran in Avatar," explains the study’s lead author, Xiaolin Wang of the Chinese Academy of Science's Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology.
Fossil analysis reveals that Ikrandraco avatar, which lived during the early Cretaceous Period, had sharp teeth in a flat, elongated skull. But it is a “blade-like bulge” of bone on the lower jaw that gives this animal its ikran-like appearance.
“Many pterosaurs bear crests on their skull, some quite large and bizarre,” describes Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro’s Alexander Kellner, a senior author of the study. But Ikrandraco avatar is reportedly the first pterosaur found with a crest on the lower jaw but not on the skull.
Pterosaurs were reportedly the first vertebrates to flap wings to fly. But NBC News points out that, “Although pterosaurs lived alongside dinosaurs, these flying reptiles were not dinosaurs.”
A hook-like structure behind the lower jaw crest was also discovered, which researchers believe indicates the Ikrandraco avatar had a throat pouch like that of a pelican. The winged creature most likely fed on small fish from freshwater lakes. Researchers note that the area in which the fossils were discovered was a freshwater lake back when Ikrandraco avatar was alive.
That long, flat skull measures approximately 11 inches long, equipped with at least 40 pairs of small teeth. But, unlike the ikrans in "Avatar," it’s unlikely that Na'vi or anyone else flew on the backs of these winged reptiles. The Ikrandraco avatar was only approximately 30 inches long.
