Scientists in the UK have identified a little fossil that came from a very big flying reptile.
The fossil was a wee fragment of beak, including a tooth, 13 millimeters in diameter. Half an inch isn鈥檛 the tiniest of teeth, but when you consider the dimensions of the beast it came from, the tooth pales in comparison.
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| A toothy pterosaur of the Coloborhynchus genus. Illustration: Mark Witton, University of Portsmouth, . |
The scientists, from the University of Portsmouth and the University of Leicester, identified the fossil鈥檚 source as a pterosaur (specifically Coloborhynchus capito), and using the toothy clue estimated the pterosaur鈥檚 skull to have been about three quarters of a meter in length. Even more impressive, the wingspan estimate was 7 meters.
To the less metric-inclined, that鈥檚 about 23 feet, a spread surpassing two stories. When Coloborhynchus capito would glide over the water in search of fish, his wingspan was more than twice that of today鈥檚 wingspan record holder, the wandering albatross.
Before the cryptozoologists of the world get too excited about finding the fabled thunderbird, they should look at when this pterosaur was estimated to have thrived. As , these guys took to the skies 210-65 million years ago.
It鈥檚 also worth noting that these were not the biggest pterosaurs. Toothless flyers could reach a . That's about a sixth of a Boeing 747 wingspan.
You can check out the study鈥檚 abstract in and for more flighty dino news check out 探花精选鈥檚 blog post on of the late Cretaceous.
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| An artist's rendition of a pterosaur. Illustration: John Conway, from the English Wikipedia |