Flying reptile hailed as the best British fossil find in 200 years
THE remains of a flying reptile that lived alongside dinosaurs 170million years ago have been unearthed on the Isle of Skye, in what experts are calling the most spectacular British fossil since the discoveries of Mary Anning in the early 1800s.
Whereas Anning found numerous specimens on the south coast of England, the Hebrides have recently emerged as a hotbed for fossil-hunters.
Amelia Penny, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of St Andrews, happened across the fossil in 2017 during a university field trip when she spotted a jawbone sticking out of the limestone at Rubha nam Brathairean (known as Brothers’ Point).
Analysis revealed it to be a pterosaur. It will be stored and studied at the National Museum of Scotland.
The species has been given the Gaelic name Dearc sgiathanach, which translates as “winged reptile”. It has been hailed as the best-preserved skeleton of a pterosaur – a huge flying reptile – and the largest discovered from the Jurassic period.
The pterosaur is closely related to dinosaurs and had an estimated wingspan of more than 2.5 metres, similar to an albatross.
In the later Cretaceous period, the era of the T-rex and Triceratops that lasted from 145million to 66million years ago, the creatures grew to the size of fighter jets, but this is the first evidence of them reaching vast sizes during the Jurassic age.
Natalia Jagielska, a PHD student at the University of Edinburgh who was lead author in a paper featuring the fossil, called it the “discovery of the century”.
Prof Steve Brusatte, personal chairman of palaeontology and evolution at the University of Edinburgh, said it was “probably the best British skeleton found since the days of Mary Anning”.
He said: “It was a stressful excavation as we were battling the tides to cut this thing out the rock with diamond-tipped saws. We lost it for a moment and had to come back at midnight.”
He said the “crown jewel fossil” had taken several days to cut from rock.
The discovery is only coming to light now after the discovery and findings were published in the scientific journal Current Biology.