A TINY pterosaur from the age of flying giants is causing a flap among Portsmouth experts.

The rare reptile, with a wingspan of 1.5 metres, would have been dwarfed by its cousins from the Late Cretaceous era 77 million years ago.

Some of them were much larger, with wingspans of up to 11 metres (36 feet), making them the size of a small plane.

But what the new specimen, thought to belong to the azhdarchoid pterosaur family, lacks in size it makes up for in terms of scientific importance.

Fossil fragments from the pterosaur were found on Hornby Island, British Columbia, in 2009. A detailed study of the fossils has only now been published in the Royal Society journal Open Science.

Pterosaurs – which were not flying dinosaurs – were the earliest vertebrates to develop powered flight, pre-dating birds by millions of years.

Co-author Dr Mark Witton, a pterosaur expert from the University of Portsmouth, said: ‘The specimen is far from the prettiest or most complete pterosaur fossil you’ll ever see, but it’s still an exciting and significant find.

‘It’s rare to find pterosaur fossils at all because their skeletons were lightweight and easily damaged once they died, and the small ones are the rarest of all. But luck was on our side and several bones of this animal survived the preservation process.

‘Happily, enough of the specimen was recovered to determine the approximate age of the pterosaur at the time of its death. By examining its internal bone structure and the fusion of its vertebrae we could see that, despite its small size, the animal was almost fully grown.

‘The specimen thus seems to be a genuinely small species, and not just a baby or juvenile of a larger pterosaur type.’ </s> Scientists have discovered a new species of 200-million-year-old pterosaur from the Patagonia region of South America.

Remarkably, the brain case of the flying reptile was well preserved, offering scientists a new look at the pterosaur's brain anatomy.

The researchers have named this new species 'Allkauren koi' from the native Tehuelche word 'all' for 'brain', and 'karuen' for 'ancient'.

Pterosaurs are an extinct group of flying reptiles that lived during most of the Mesozoic Era.

This group had an extraordinary adaptation to flight, including pneumatic bones to lighten its weight, and an elongated digit supporting the wings.

But the pterosaur skull is known from only a few three dimensionally preserved remains and, until now, there was no information on the intermediate forms.

This study provides new information on the origin and type of evolution in this particular group of flying reptiles.

The braincase found in this study was only a few dozen millimeters long, suggesting that it was from a small pterosaur species, the researchers said.

The fossil of Allkaruen koi was found in northern central Chubut Province, Patagonia Argentina.

In order to study the skull anatomy, researchers used computed tomography to observe, in three dimensions, the cranial endocast and the inner ear.

'Allkaruen, from the middle lower Jurassic limit, shows an intermediate state in the brain evolution of pterosaurs and their adaptations to the aerial environment', said Dr Diego Pol, who is part of the research team.

'As a result, this research makes an important contribution to the understanding of the evolution of all of pterosaurs.' </s> A tiny pterosaur from the age of flying giants is causing a flap among scientists.

The rare reptile, with a wingspan of 'only' 1.5 metres (4.9ft), would have been dwarfed by its cousins from the Late Cretaceous era 77 million years ago.

Some of them were much larger, with wingspans of up to 11 metres (36 feet), making them the size of a small plane.

These new specimen had a wingspan of only 5ft (1.5 metres). Pterosaurs from the Late Cretaceous period were much bigger with wingspans of between four and 11 metres. The fossils of the creature belonged to an azhdarchoid pterosaur. This is a group of short-winged and toothless flying reptiles which dominated the final phase of pterosaur evolution. Previous studies suggest that the Late Cretaceous skies were only occupied by much larger pterosaur species and birds.

But what the new specimen, thought to belong to the azhdarchoid pterosaur family, lacks in size it makes up for in terms of scientific importance.

Before the discovery in Canada, researchers thought small pterosaurs had been unable to compete with early birds in the Late Cretaceous.

Lead scientist Elizabeth Martin-Silverstone, from the University of Southampton, said: 'This new pterosaur is exciting because it suggests that small pterosaurs were present all the way until the end of the Cretaceous, and weren't out-competed by birds.

'The hollow bones of pterosaurs are notoriously poorly preserved, and larger animals seem to be preferentially preserved in similarly aged Late Cretaceous ecosystems of North America.

'This suggests that a small pterosaur would very rarely be preserved, but not necessarily that they didn't exist.'

Fossil fragments from the pterosaur were found on Hornby Island, British Columbia, in 2009.

A detailed study of the fossils has only now been published in the Royal Society journal Open Science.

Pterosaurs - which were not flying dinosaurs - were the earliest vertebrates to develop powered flight, pre-dating birds by millions of years.

For some 140 million years they ruled the skies. Eventually they were replaced by birds, which evolved from bird-like dinosaurs.

Azhdarchoid pterosaurs were a group of short-winged flying reptiles that shared similarities with birds, including a toothless 'beak'.

Co-author Dr Mark Witton, a pterosaur expert from the University of Portsmouth, said: 'The specimen is far from the prettiest or most complete pterosaur fossil you'll ever see, but it's still an exciting and significant find.

'It's rare to find pterosaur fossils at all because their skeletons were lightweight and easily damaged once they died, and the small ones are the rarest of all.

'But luck was on our side and several bones of this animal survived the preservation process.

'Happily, enough of the specimen was recovered to determine the approximate age of the pterosaur at the time of its death.

'By examining its internal bone structure and the fusion of its vertebrae we could see that, despite its small size, the animal was almost fully grown.

'The specimen thus seems to be a genuinely small species, and not just a baby or juvenile of a larger pterosaur type.' </s> A tiny pterosaur from the age of flying giants is causing a flap among scientists. 

 The rare reptile, with a wingspan of "only" 1.5 metres (4.9ft), would have been dwarfed by its cousins from the Late Cretaceous era 77 million years ago. 

 Some of them were much larger, with wingspans of up to 11 metres (36 feet), making them the size of a small plane. 

 But what the new specimen, thought to belong to the azhdarchoid pterosaur family, lacks in size it makes up for in terms of scientific importance. 

 Before the discovery in Canada, researchers thought small pterosaurs had been unable to compete with early birds in the Late Cretaceous.

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 Lead scientist Elizabeth Martin-Silverstone, from the University of Southampton, said: "This new pterosaur is exciting because it suggests that small pterosaurs were present all the way until the end of the Cretaceous, and weren't out-competed by birds. 

 "The hollow bones of pterosaurs are notoriously poorly preserved, and larger animals seem to be preferentially preserved in similarly aged Late Cretaceous ecosystems of North America. This suggests that a small pterosaur would very rarely be preserved, but not necessarily that they didn't exist."



 Fossil fragments from the pterosaur were found on Hornby Island, British Columbia, in 2009. A detailed study of the fossils has only now been published in the Royal Society journal Open Science. 

 Pterosaurs - which were not flying dinosaurs - were the earliest vertebrates to develop powered flight, pre-dating birds by millions of years. 

 For some 140 million years they ruled the skies. Eventually they were replaced by birds, which evolved from bird-like dinosaurs. 

 Azhdarchoid pterosaurs were a group of short-winged flying reptiles that shared similarities with birds, including a toothless "beak".

Co-author Dr Mark Witton, a pterosaur expert from the University of Portsmouth, said: "The specimen is far from the prettiest or most complete pterosaur fossil you'll ever see, but it's still an exciting and significant find. 

 "It's rare to find pterosaur fossils at all because their skeletons were lightweight and easily damaged once they died, and the small ones are the rarest of all. But luck was on our side and several bones of this animal survived the preservation process.

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 "Happily, enough of the specimen was recovered to determine the approximate age of the pterosaur at the time of its death. By examining its internal bone structure and the fusion of its vertebrae we could see that, despite its small size, the animal was almost fully grown. 

 "The specimen thus seems to be a genuinely small species, and not just a baby or juvenile of a larger pterosaur type." </s> The largest flying animal known to soar this Earth was a pterosaur. With a wingspan of more than 32 feet, Quetzalcoatlus northropi dominated the skies at the end of the Late Cretaceous, the last days of the Age of the Dinosaurs.

But the humongous flying beast may have lived alongside a much tinier cousin. A 77-million-year-old fossil unearthed on Hornby Island in British Columbia, Canada, reveals what may have been the smallest pterosaur to soar in the Late Cretaceous skies.

This tiny pterosaur had a wingspan of just under 5 feet, according to the description of the new fossil published Tuesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

The new individual would have been dwarfed by most of the other pterosaurs known from the time. The smallest pterosaurs known from the Late Cretaceous had a wingspan of about 8 feet, comparable to those of the largest birds today. But the largest pterosaurs, including Quetzalcoatlus, would have stood as tall as a giraffe.

"We have this small pterosaur, which is in a time when there aren't meant to be any small pterosaurs," study co-author Mark Witton, a paleontologist at the University of Portsmouth in England, tells The Christian Science Monitor.

One of the things scientists ask when they find a surprisingly small animal is whether or not it's a juvenile, Dr. Witton says. So the team probed the microscopic anatomy of the pterosaur's bones to see if it was done growing when it died.

This pterosaur might have had a little bit of growing left to do, Witton says, but it was likely close to its full, adult size. And that means they had their hands on a special specimen.

"Pterosaurs are rare. Pterosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous, where they found their specimen, are even rarer. And smaller pterosaurs, small individuals, are more rare than that," Alexander Kellner, a paleontologist and pterosaur expert at the National Museum of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro who was not part of the study, tells the Monitor.

But had this animal lived earlier, it might not have stood out as much. Similarly sized pterosaurs soared through most of the Mesozoic era, Witton says. "It's just at the Late Cretaceous where things get a bit weird."

Why don't paleontologists see the smaller pterosaurs continuing along in the fossil record alongside their larger cousins into the Late Cretaceous?

"One option is that they genuinely weren't there," Witton says.

"People have said that maybe the rise of birds is the problem here. Birds appear in the Jurassic period, they diversify, and they become a very successful group in their own right," he explains. "There's an idea that pterosaurs may have been out-competed by small birds."

In other words, birds ousted small-bodied pterosaurs from the ecological niche for small, flying animals.

But neither Witton nor Dr. Kellner buy it.

Instead, both scientists agree that there is probably just a preservation bias at work. Small-bodied pterosaurs may not have preserved well in the Late Cretaceous fossil record, for whatever reason, says Witton.

"We think that there's good evidence for this because we're not finding juveniles," he adds. Even the largest pterosaurs must have been small-bodied at one point in their lifespans, and they probably didn't all survive to adulthood, so these smaller pterosaur bones may simply preserve poorly.

And this new discovery supports the idea that small-bodied pterosaurs were indeed around during the Late Cretaceous, Witton says. So perhaps "the Late Cretaceous was not as unusual as we've been thinking it may have been."

This fossil doesn't reveal much more about pterosaurs, Witton says. It's not a complete skeleton. "You don't look at this thing and go, wow, that's the nicest thing you've ever seen," he says. "It really looks like it's been chewed up," and some of Witton's colleagues joked that it looked like a piece of rubble.

The research team has studied the scraps they have to try to place this individual pterosaur in a clade.

"We think that it's an Azhdarchoid pterosaur," Witton says. "These are things with big heads and relatively short wings. They were probably generalist feeders that spent much of their time walking around on the ground, basically eating whatever they could."

That would make it a particularly close cousin to the humongous Quetzalcoatlus northropi. But Kellner isn't convinced by that placement on the pterosaur family tree.

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"The material they have is just very incomplete," he says. "I just don't think that they have enough material to be able to make a solid identification as to which pterosaur group those bones belong."

Regardless of where the new fossil falls phylogenetically, he says, "they undoubtedly have a small pterosaur species." </s> The study, published in the journal PeerJ, provides new information on the origin, tempo and mode of evolution in this particular group of flying reptiles.

Scientists have discovered a new species of pterosaur - an extinct group of flying reptiles - from the early Jurassic period in the Patagonia region of South America.

The cranial remains were in an excellent state of preservation, said the researchers who have named this new species ‘Allkauren koi’ from the native Tehuelche word ‘all’ for ‘brain’, and ‘karuen’ for ‘ancient’

Pterosaurs had an extraordinary adaptation to flight, including pneumatic bones to lighten their weight, and an elongated digit supporting a wing membrane.

However, pterosaur neuroanatomy is known from only a few three dimensionally preserved remains and, until now, there was no information on the intermediate forms.

This study, published in the journal PeerJ, therefore provides new information on the origin, tempo and mode of evolution in this particular group of flying reptiles.

“Allkaruen, from the middle lower Jurassic limit, shows an intermediate state in the brain evolution of pterosaurs and their adaptations to the aerial environment,” said one of the researchers Diego Pol from the Museum of Paleontology Egidio Feruglio in Trelew city, Argentina.

“As a result, this research makes an important contribution to the understanding of the evolution of all pterosaurs,” Pol noted.

The fossil of Allkaruen koi was found in northern central Chubut Province in Argentina and the remains included a superbly preserved and uncrushed braincase.

In order to study the neurocranial anatomy, the researchers used computed tomography to observe, in three dimensions, the cranial endocast and the inner ear.

Subsequently, a comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of the group was performed, including these cranial data and other anatomical features. </s> The incredible discovery which is sure to be one of the most important paleontological finds ever, is a world first and now scientists have a once in a lifetime opportunity to study a piece of dinosaur which has travelled millions of years through time intact.

It is believed the tail belonged to a flightless dinosaur that lived approximately 99 million years ago in the mid-Cretaceous period.

The specimen was found in north eastern Myanmar, in an amber mine. It is believed the tail belongs to a juvenile coelurosaur, which is a type of therapod.

“This is the first time we’ve found dinosaur material preserved in amber,” said study co-author Ryan McKellar of the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Canada. “We can be sure of the source because the vertebrae are not fused into a rod or pygostyle as in modern birds and their closest relatives.”

8 vertebrae are perfectly preserved in the amber, with many small delicate feathers, coloured brown on top and white underneath.

“It’s amazing to see all the details of a dinosaur tail – the bones, flesh, skin, and feathers – and to imagine how this little fellow got his tail caught in the resin, and then presumably died because he could not wrestle free,” said study co-author Prof Mike Benton from the University of Bristol. </s> The photo above shows the partially excavated fossil skeleton of a newly discovered species of diplodocoid dinosaur in the Lingwu region of China. Dubbed Lingwulong shenqi (the Lingwu amazing dragon), the fossils are around 174 million years old.

The finds provide evidence that diplodocoid dinosaurs were distributed across the supercontinent Pangaea, according to a paper published in Nature Communications.

Sauropods were long-necked, herbivorous dinosaurs and among the longest and largest land animals to have lived. It has been thought that advanced sauropods, the neosauropods, diversified during the breakup of Pangaea and had not reached East Asia before it became isolated.

Evolutionary and biogeographic analyses including the new species now suggest that neosauropods were already diverse and widespread in the Middle Jurassic (about 174 to 163 million years ago), rather than rapidly becoming dominant at the transition to the Late Jurassic (163 to 145 million years ago) as previously thought. Furthermore, major sauropod groups may have originated in the Early Jurassic. </s> Paleontologists have discovered the fossils of a new species of dinosaur in northwestern China.

The discovery of Lingwulong shenqi, shows there was an early member of the well-known group of plant-eating dinosaurs called sauropods -- early meaning 15 million years earlier than any previously-known member of the group.

The newly-discovered dinosaur was a neosauropod, a group of long-necked vegetarians that includes brontosaurus and diplodocus.

Xu Xing/Reuters

It is estimated to have been between 35 and 57 feet long from head to tail. The discovery was published in the British journal, Nature Communications on Tuesday.

Lingwulong shengi translates to "Amazing Dragon from Lingwu". Lingwu, is the region where they were found; long is Mandarin for 'dragon' and shenqi is Mandarin for 'amazing'.

Zhang Zongda/Reuters

Research has previously shown that neosauropods thrived from between 163 million and 145 million years ago, in the late Jurassic period.

But Lingwulong shengi fossils date back to 174 million years ago, suggesting neosauropods were roaming Pangea much earlier, in the Middle Jurassic period.

This has prompted the paleontologists to re-examine their hypothesis of the largest diplodocoid dinosaur roaming 15 million years earlier from previously thought.

It also suggests that these dinosaurs dispersed into East Asia much earlier than previously believed -- when Pangea was still a large landmass.

Reuters

For more detailed information on the 'Amazing Dragon from Lingwu' please visit Nature.com
The fossil of a new species of pterosaur is discovered on Hornby Island, British Columbia in Canada.