In an article published Monday in the magazine Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, a team of scientists has announced that they have identified a new species of pterosaur in Australia, a flying creature that probably lived 110 million years ago, during the time of the dinosaurs. Called Thapunngaka Shawi, it is almost seven meters wide and has a large jaw made up of 40 teeth. The Guardian, transmitted by Geo.
“It’s the closest thing we have to a real dragon,” said Tim Richards, a doctoral student at the University of Queensland and a co-author of the discovery. The fossil that uncovered these features is a piece of the lower jaw found in June 2011 in northwest Queensland.
“It is quite fantastic that there are fossils of these animals,” added Tim Richards, who underscores the rarity of such a discovery. Since the identification of the first pterosaur some 40 years ago, only about 20 specimens have been found in Australia. According to paleontologists, the corpses of these creatures were generally swallowed directly by their predators, leaving no chance for their thin bones to fossilize.
The study by Tim Richards, Paul Stumkat and Steven Salisbury therefore constitutes a great advance in the understanding of the diversity of these creatures found in different parts of the world. The bony ridge seen in the fossil would suggest, for example, that it is a device related to theft. Looking at the 40 teeth on the jaw, this suggests that this species of pterosaur was carnivorous. “There has never been anything like this since they passed away. This makes the discovery of new pterosaur fossils exciting because we only know them for this, ”concluded Steven Salisbury.
