The fossil of a 170-million-year-old pterosaur was found during a recent dig in Scotland.
Better known as a pterodactyl, it’s the largest preserved skeleton of a pterosaur specimen found from the Jurassic era. The skeleton will be displayed in the National Museums of Scotland.
“A spectacular fossil of a pterosaur found on the Isle of Skye (the largest of its kind ever discovered from the Jurassic period) has been added to our collection and will be studied further,” the Museums said in a Facebook post.
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The specimen had an 8-foot wingspan and was given the Gaelic name Dearc sgiathanach, which translates to “winged reptile,” according to a paper filed in Current Biology. The specimen is also the best-preserved pterosaur found yet.
“This is a superlative Scottish fossil. The preservation is amazing … probably the best British skeleton found since the days of Mary Anning in the early 1800s,” said Professor Steve Brusatte of the University of Edinburgh in a public statement.
The skeleton was found by a National Geographic-funded expedition on the Isle of Skye in 2017 when a graduate student noticed a bone on the beach, Dr. Nick Fraser of the National Museums wrote in a blog post. Upon further investigation, it was determined to be the jaw of a pterosaur. The skull was slowly cut out from the limestone in which it was ensconced, eventually revealing the creature’s entire skeleton. The specimen was then taken to the university for further study.
“It seems we had previously underestimated the size of pterosaurs in the Jurassic,” Fraser wrote. “While perhaps not as large as some of the giants of the Cretaceous (which were the size of small [airplanes]!) Dearc still had a wingspan comparable with that of a Wandering Albatross, the largest flying bird in the world and not an animal to be readily trifled with.”
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Dearc’s recovery is the latest discovery from the island, home to several paleontological discoveries since the 1960s.
It is “really the only place in Scotland where evidence has been found of dinosaurs and Jurassic fossils, going back to the 1970s,” Brusatte told the Scotsman.
