A fossil discovery in China may give clues to the origins of pterodactyls, the flying reptiles that were the largest flying creatures ever to soar over the Earth, researchers say.
An international research team has found and named the earliest known example of a pterodactyloid, dating it to 163 million years in the past, pushing the age of the flying reptiles much further back than had been thought.
Christened Kryptodrakon progenitor, the fossil puts the age of the aerial creatures at least 5 million years earlier, the researchers say.
"This guy is the very first pterodactyloid -- he has the last features that changed before the group radiated and took over the world," says Brian Andres, a paleontologist at the University of South Florida.
Kryptodrakon progenitor means "ancestral hidden dragon," although it was no dragon, he says.
"He is a small guy, and [the fossil is] very fragmentary," says Andres, co-author of a study published in the journal Current Biology.
The fossil, with an estimated wingspan of 4.5 feet, was discovered in the Shishugou Formation, a region of rocks in the northwest of China knows for its abundance of fossils, where ancient quicksand is believed to have entombed large numbers of prehistoric animals.
When first discovered the fossil was misidentified as a kind of two-legged walking dinosaur, a theropod.
Only after several years, when the fossil remains were assembled into a partial skeleton, was its true nature realized, says research collaborator James Clark of George Washington University.
"I looked at it and said, 'That's not a theropod, that's a pterosaur,'" the biologist says. "And the rest is history."
Kryptodrakon likely inhabited a forested plain far inland, which the researchers say is a surprise as almost all previous fossils of pterodactyls have been found near oceans.
Kryptodrakon has a wing bone much broader than those of later species, possible giving it more control in navigating around challenging features on land, Clark says.
The finding is particularly significant since the bones of pterodactyls are very fragile, making it difficult to determine much about the earliest origins of these relatives of ancient dinosaurs.
"Kryptodrakon is the second pterosaur species we've discovered in the Shishugou Formation and deepens our understanding of this unusually diverse Jurassic ecosystem," Clark says.
