ARTICLES
A 4-metre flying reptile unearthed in Queensland is our best
pterosaur fossil yet
'Ferrodraco lentoni' - Australia's newest prehistoric species. Travis R. Tischler. Author Provided
Although more complete fossils of similar pterosaurs are known
from Brazil and China, until this discovery, our understanding
of the pterosaurs that lived in Australia during the Cretaceous
period was limited.
Author
Adele Pentland. Adele Pentland is a PhD Candidate at
Swinburne University of Technology.
This article was initially published in ‘The Conversation’ on 4th
October, 2019.
The most significant pterosaur fossil ever discovered in Australia
has been unearthed in the Winton area of central western
Queensland. The newly discovered species, which my colleagues
and I have named ‘Ferrodraco lentoni’, had a wingspan of about 4
metres. It lived around 96 million years ago, and was surprisingly
similar to other pterosaurs from England, suggesting that these
huge flying reptiles could traverse the globe with relative ease.
he fossil was fortuitously preserved with the help of ironstone.
Pentland et al., Scientific Reports.webp
Pterosaurs are quite rare in the fossil record as their bones are
hollow, and the outer bone in most instances is only 1mm thick.
Only 15 pterosaur specimens have ever been scientifically
described from Australia, many of them incomplete. Until recently,
only two species of Australian pterosaur had been described:
‘Mythunga camara’ and ‘Aussiedraco molnari’, both of these
were based upon fossil skull fragments.
The new pterosaur specimen was unveiled in the journal ‘Scientific
Reports’ on 4th October, 2019, and includes a partial skull, five
partial neck vertebrae, and bones from both the left and right
wings.
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SCIENCE EDUCATIONAL NEWS VOL 68 NO 4