Reptile With 2.5 Meter Wings And Live 170 Million Years Ago, Pterosaur Found

Pterosaurs, winged reptiles 170 million years old, have been discovered by scientists. (photo: Doc. University of Edinburgh PhD student Natalia)

JAKARTA - Scientists have discovered a 170-million-year-old winged reptile on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. Pterosaurs are claimed to be similar to albatrosses.

Known as pterodactyls, these reptiles were the largest of their kind ever discovered from the Jurassic period. How not, the wingspan alone is more than 2.5 meters or 8.2 feet, and is the most preserved in the world.

The pterosaur has been given the name Gaelic Dearc sgiathanach, which translates as winged reptile. Pterosaurs were the first vertebrates to fly, about 50 million years before birds.

They lived as far back as the Triassic period, about 230 million years ago. It was previously thought to be much smaller during the Jurassic period.

According to a report by the National Museum of Scotland, the fossil was discovered in 2017 by Ph.D. student Amelia Penny during a field trip on the Isle of Skye in Scotland's remote northwest.

Citing ABC News, Wednesday, February 23, at that time, Penny saw the pterosaur jaw protruding from the rock. But now, the fossil has been added to the museum's collection.

“Preserved pterosaurs of such quality are extremely rare and are usually reserved for selecting rock formations in Brazil and China. However, an exceptionally well-preserved pterosaur emerged from a tidal platform in Scotland," said Natalia Jagielska, a doctoral student at the University of Edinburgh and co-author of the scientific paper on the discovery.

Furthermore, a professor of paleontology at the University of Edinburgh, Steve Brusatte stated the find is the best ever found in England since the early 1800s, when the famous fossil hunter Mary Anning found many significant Jurassic fossils on the south coast of England.

Brusatte said the fossil had light, hairy bones as thin as sheets of paper, and it took several days to cut them out of rock with a saw as his team battled tidal currents in the ocean.

"This tells us that pterosaurs got bigger much earlier than we thought, well before the Cretaceous period when they competed with birds, and that's very significant," Brusatte said.