An article published in the “Royal Society journal Open Science” describes the discovery of a pterosaur attributed to the azhdarchid family. This flying reptile lived about 77 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous period and is the first of its kind discovered in the British Columbia coast. For now indicated only as RBCM.EH.2009.019.0001, the specimen is a partial skeleton found subjected to CT scans to obtain information about a rare type of small-sized pterosaur.
Elizabeth Martin-Silverstone, a paleobiology PhD student at the University of Southampton, is the lead author of an article about a species of pterosaur unusual for the era in which it lived. The azhdarchid (Azhdarchidae) pterosaurs were generally big – and among them the giant Quetzalcoatlus northropi stood out – so the discovery of a small species is surprising.
Ten pieces of RBCM.EH.2009.019.0001 skeleton were found in the town of Collishaw Point in 2009 and none of them is in perfect condition. All bones are damaged if not broken or incomplete, unfortunately a normal event in the case of pterosaur bones, which were hollow and thus difficult to be conserved well.
The bones of the azhdarchid pterosaur found were enough to get an idea of some of the animal’s characteristics such as an estimated wingspan in just 1.5 meters (about 5′), and the fact that it was an almost fully grown specimen. However, there are too few of them to understand for example how it lived because its giant cousins probably fed on small dinosaurs but this small-sized species could perhaps feed on fish.
The presence of a small-sized species towards the end of the Cretaceous is a surprise because the available fossil record suggested that at the time the skies were occupied by birds or large pterosaurs. It’s one of the cases where the shortage of fossils may give a wrong idea of such an ancient ecosystem. This new discovery suggests that the diversity and success of the Late Cretaceous pterosaurs were greater than paleontologists thought.
The bones of juvenile pterosaurs are very rare because they’re very fragile and difficult to have conserved. It’s plausible that the same thing has happened for adult pterosaurs belonging to small species. In the latest case the first objections to its attribution have already arrived. It’s the reason why the specimen is still known only as RBCM.EH.2009.019.0001 without an attribution to a species. The fossils will keep on being studied to try to understand how they can change our knowledge of pterosaurs.
