Ancient Flying Dragons of Scotland

A real dragon (of sorts) has been captured on Scotland’s Isle of Skye!

is particular dragon is actually a 170 million year old pterosaur from the Middle Jurassic Period of Earth history. It has been given the scientific name of Dearc sgiathanach, which is Gaelic for “winged reptile.” Scientists had to battle tides while freeing the fossil from its limestone tomb jutting into the sea.

Natalia Jagielska, the lead author of a paper describing the ‡nd in the journal Current Biology, says it was a slender, light-weight critter but sported a wing span of eight feet.

e specimen uncovered was not fully grown. Jagielska believes an adult would have had a span of ten feet.

Dearc was remarkably complete and well preserved with delicate bones (including a brain cast) intact in three dimensions. More importantly, its relatively large size surprised paleontologists, including study co-author Steve Brusatte. He says fellow paleontologists didn’t believe pterosaurs grew so large until tens of millions of years later, which makes this startling ‡nd from the Isle of Skye all the more amazing.