Dragon bones unearthed

15 August 2014 - 02:36 By Reuters
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HEAD GEARED: A reconstruction of three growth stages of the newly discovered pterosaur Caiuajara dobruskii
HEAD GEARED: A reconstruction of three growth stages of the newly discovered pterosaur Caiuajara dobruskii
Image: MAURILIO OLIVEIRA/MUSEU NACIONAL-UFRJ/REUTERS

A flying reptile whose head was topped with a big bony crest shaped like the sail of a yacht swooped through the skies over Brazil roughly 90million years ago.

Scientists announced this week the remarkable discovery at a site in southern Brazil of about 50 fossilised skeletons of Caiuajara dobruskii, a flying reptile of the pterosaur family that lived alongside the dinosaurs.

These pterosaurs, whose wings spanned nearly 2.4m, inhabited a lakeside oasis in a large desert region during the Cretaceous period, they said.

"This helps us to get a glimpse of the anatomical variation achieved by this species, from young to old," said Alexander Kellner, a palaeontologist with Brazil's National Museum, in Rio de Janeiro.

Many pterosaurs, especially the later ones, had elaborate and sometimes large head crests.

Caiuajara's head was topped with a big triangular crest that looked like "a bony sail".

"The crest was small in young animals and very large in older ones," Kellner said.

Pterosaurs were Earth's first flying vertebrates, birds and bats making their appearances much later.

They thrived from about 220million years to 65million years ago, when they were wiped out by the asteroid impact that also doomed the dinosaurs.

The researchers described 47 skeletons in their study, published in the scientific journal PLOS One, and said they had identified 10 morespecies.

Caiuajara was toothless and most likely a fruit-eater, Kellner said. The skeletons of the juveniles strongly suggested that they could fly when very young.

The study of pterosaurs has been difficult because their fragile skeletons do not produce good fossils.

The sheer number of Caiuajaras discovered, and the variety of their ages, has made it one of the best understood pterosaurs, the researchers said.

Chinese scientists in June said they had unearthed no fewer than 40 adults of another newly identified pterosaur species, as well as five beautifully preserved pterosaur eggs.

No eggs of Caiuajara were found at the site in Brazil.

"Not yet. But one is allowed to dream," said Kellner.

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