The fossil of a 170-million-year-old flying reptile was found on the Isle of Skye in Scotland and is described as the largest fossil of its kind ever discovered, according to scientists.
The National Museum of Scotland announced the finding of the pterosaur fossil on Tuesday. It was discovered in 2017 by PhD student Amelia Penny during a field trip to the Isle of Skye when she noticed the jaw of a pterosaur sticking out from a rock.
Dr. Nick Fraser, Keeper of Natural Sciences at National Museums Scotland, explained how lucky it was to keep the fossil intact.
"Without the rock cracking skills of Dugie Ross on hand, this may well have been just one more fossil lost to the sea’s erosive powers," Fraser wrote. "But with Dugie’s surgical skills with a rock saw and a group of practiced field geologists, the pterosaur was cut from the rock and safely hauled off the beach before it could be lost to the depths."
The pterosaur was named Dearc sgiathanach, in Gaelic, which translates to "winged reptile." The Isle of Skye's Gaelic name also translates to "the winged isle," according to the National Museum of Scotland.
"Pterosaurs preserved in such quality are exceedingly rare and are usually reserved to select rock formations in Brazil and China. And yet, an enormous superbly preserved pterosaur emerged from a tidal platform in Scotland," Natalia Jagielska, a doctoral student at the University of Edinburgh and author of the scientific paper, said.
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Pterosaurs were previously thought to have been much smaller in the Jurassic period, but the reptile is said to have a wingspan of more than 8 feet.
Steve Brusatte, a professor of paleontology at Edinburgh University, said the fossil had "feather light" bones, "as thin as sheets of paper."
The fossil "tells us that pterosaurs got larger much earlier than we thought, long before the Cretaceous period when they were competing with birds, and that's hugely significant," Brusatte said.
Brusatte added that the discovery is the best found in Britain since Marry Anning found multiple Jurassic fossils in the early 1800s.
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