Discovered: four-metre ‘birds’ with set of teeth like spikes

SCIENTISTS have discovered three new species of flying reptiles that lived in the

Sahara 100million years ago.

The pterodactyls, with a wingspan of up to four metres, would have snatched prehistoric fish while on the wing, using what is described as ‘a murderous-looking set of large spike-like teeth’.

Professor David Martill, of the University of Portsmouth, led the team of researchers who made the discovery in Morocco.

He said: ‘We are in a golden age for discovering pterodactyls. This year alone we have discovered three new species and we are only in March.’

Despite their size, the pterosaurs, as the beasts are properly known, would have weighed very little, with almost ‘paper-thin’ bones.

A university spokesman explained: ‘These flying predators soared above a world that was dominated by predators, including crocodile-like hunters and carnivorous dinosaurs. Interestingly, herbivores are rare. Large pterosaurs such as these would have been able to forage over vast distances, similar to present-day birds such as condors and albatrosses.

‘Many of the predators, including the toothed pterosaurs, preyed on a superabundance of fish.’

An account of the discovery published in the journal Cretaceous Research describes how the new species were identified from chunks of jawbones and teeth found on the Kem Kem Beds on the Morocco-Algerian border, a geographical formation rich in dinosaur fossils.

Of the species found there, one closely resembles another whose fossil remains have previously been found in Brazil, while another is very similar to a creature previously found in England and central Asia.