The discovery of an unusual new pterosaur species is shaking up the history of iconic flying reptiles.

That’s the conclusion of an international team of researchers after analyzing a 178-million-year-old fossil found in southern Argentina. Paleontologists have named a new species Melkamter dude— whose generic name aptly translates to “winged large lizard.”

This finding not only pushes back the evolution of an advanced group of pterosaurs that dominated the skies during the Cretaceous period (145 million to 66 million years ago), but also suggests that they did not originate in coastal environments, but inland, feeding on flying insects.

The first ever group of actively flying vertebrates, the pterosaurs, first took to the skies about 230 million years ago, nearly 80 million years before the first birds arrived on the scene.

They soared thanks to thin wing membranes – not unlike those seen in modern bats – suspended from an extremely elongated fourth finger on each hand. This adaptation for flight was perfected over time. The earliest pterosaurs only had relatively short wings and retained a long tail.

But a subgroup known as the pterodactyloids that evolved later—which included all the Cretaceous pterosaurs—evolved slender, elongated wings while shortening the length of the tail.

Pterodactyloids include the largest flying animal that ever lived, Quetzalcoatlus northropiwhich reached nearly 500 pounds and a wingspan of about 36 feet.

The transition from early pterosaur forms to pterodactyloids is known to have occurred during the Jurassic (201.3 million to 145 million years ago). The oldest previously known fossils date from about 160 million years ago.

However, our understanding of the rise of pterodactyloids has been based almost entirely on the Northern Hemisphere fossil record, with very few specimens identified from the southern continents.

But in their new study, paleontologist Alexandra Fernandes of the Bavarian State Collection for Paleontology and Geology and her colleagues present an early pterodactyloid from South America that pushes back the fossil record of this subgroup by about 18 million years.

Melkamter was unearthed from the mud at the site of Queso Rallado, which lies about 3.5 miles from the village of Cerro Cóndor in the Argentine province of Chubut.

The fossil specimen included a partial skull, four mid-back vertebrae, one long bone, and two pterodactyloid teeth—remains that show several features that indicate the creature is a pterodactyloid.

The location where the specimen was found is also noteworthy, the team said.

Unlike most known pterosaurs of the Jurassic age, which lived near the sea and are thought to have fed on fish and other marine species, Melkamter was found inland.

The researchers believe that instead of eating fish and the like, the newly identified pterosaur species likely ate insects—and that pterodactyloids may have also evolved in inland rather than coastal environments.

“It is possible that early specialization on highly mobile prey such as flying insects contributed to the evolutionary success of pterodactyloids,” Fernandes said in a statement.

She concluded: “This find highlights not only how little we still know about pterosaurs in the Southern Hemisphere, but also the potential that the southern continents have to improve our understanding of pterosaur evolution.”

Link

Fernandes, AE, Pol, D., & Rauhut, OWM (2024). The oldest monofenestratan pterosaur from the Queso Rallado locality (Cañadón Asfalto Formation, Toarcian) of Chubut Province, Patagonia, Argentina. Royal Society Open Science, 11(12), 241238. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.241238