#a new solnhofen pterosaur

[quotesfromall]

Ecosystems are often dominated by a small number of species that are represented by numerous individuals and make up much of the biomass, and so it is inevitable that many taxa will be rare and hard to find. Thus, ongoing excavations will be necessary to provide more thorough pictures of the diversity and disparity of lineages such as pterosaurs and to build a more complete picture of their history

Rene Lauer, A new Solnhofen Pterosaur

[knuppitalism-with-ue]

A new pterosaur from the Solnhofen area dropped two days ago, immediately went into my portrait gallery :3

It's a really nice and completely specimen too

And I love the name, here the paper

[skyemcdavid]

Hey I still don't know how to use tumblr because I'm simultaneously too old and too young to understand both the UI and the vibes of the platform, but uhhh say hi to Petrodactyle wellnhoferi, a new large crested ctenochasmatoid pterosaur from the Late Jurassic of Germany that i did the skeletal diagram for.

[greenfrog04]

A new Solnhofen pterosaur, Petrodactyle wellnhoferi gen. et sp. nov.: A new and large ctenochasmatid pterosaur from the Late Jurassic of Germany

Published 14 July 2023

A new pterosaur, Petrodactyle wellnhoferi, identified and described based skeletal and cranial remains.

Petrodactyle wellnhoferi holotype

Petrodactyle wellnhoferi skull

Petrodactyle wellnhoferi skeletal reconstruction

Artist reconstruction of Petrodactyle wellnhoferi, by ttorroo

Source:

[sciencenewsforstudents]

A fossil of a squid with a pterosaur tooth embedded in it offers extraordinary evidence of a 150-million-year-old battle at sea. While many pterosaur fossils containing fish scales and bones in their stomachs have revealed that some of these flying reptiles included fish in their diet, the new find from Germany is the first proof that pterosaurs also hunted squid.  

The fossil was excavated in 2012 in the Solnhofen Limestone, near Eichstätt in Bavaria, where many Jurassic Period fossils of pterosaurs, small dinosaurs and the earliest known bird, Archaeopteryx, have been found. The region’s environment at the time was something like the Bahamas today, with low-lying islands dotting shallow tropical seas.

The embedded tooth fits the right size and shape for the pterosaur Rhamphorhynchus, paleontologists report online January 27 in Scientific Reports. They argue that the tooth was left by a pterosaur that swooped to the ocean surface to snap up the 30-centimeter-long squid from the extinct Plesioteuthis genus, but was unsuccessful, possibly because the squid was too large or too far down in the water column for the predator to manage.

“The Plesioteuthis squid wrestled it off and escaped, breaking at least one tooth off the pterosaur, which became lodged in [the squid’s] mantle,” says Jordan Bestwick, a paleontologist at the University of Leicester in England. “This fossil is important in helping us understand the dietary range of Rhamphorhynchus, and tells us about its hunting behavior.”

This well-preserved fossil of a 30-centimeter-long Plesioteuthis squid has the tooth of a pterosaur embedded in its mantle.

CREDIT: RENÉ HOFFMAN

The fossil itself is unique, according to pterosaur researcher Taíssa Rodrigues at the Federal University of Espírito Santo in Vitorio, Brazil, who was not involved in the study. “It is very rare to find predator-prey interactions that include pterosaurs,” she says. “In the few cases we do have, pterosaurs were the prey of large fish. So it is great to see this the other way around.”

Paleontologist Michael Habib of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles says he suspects the squid was far too large for the pterosaur to haul out of the water. “The pterosaur was lucky that the tooth broke off,” says Habib, who was not involved with the study. “A squid of that size could probably have pulled it under.”

[geoworldtravel]

Germany 2019

Here's the blog of our recent trip to Germany. This new trip took in many famous fossil sites, volcanoes and even a meteor crater!

Germany: Famous Fossil Sites and the Munich Show

In late October 2019, we ran our inaugural trip to Germany, taking in some of the world’s best fossil sites.

Day one – arrival

Today the group gathered at our hotel just outside Frankfurt. We welcomed guests from the UK and the USA.

Day two – Messel Pit & Darmstadt

The first stop of our first touring day was the Messel Pit World…

[huxley-paleozoo]

Django the Cycnorhamphus

Name: Django

Species: Cycnorhamphus suevicus*

Description: Cycnorhamphus, even by pterosaur standards, is weird. Originally thought to have a long straight beak (going off juvenile fossils), a new fossil shows its skull was much stranger. Not only did it have a large crest on the top of the head, two soft-tissue projections jut out of the upper jaw, and the lower jaw in turn curves. The teeth are peglike and restricted to the very, very front of the beak. Being one of many pterosaurs from late Jurassic Germany, this probably implies a specialized diet compared to other pterosaurs - perhaps hard-shelled food.

Location: Django is one of the many shore pterosaurs that lives in the Solnhofen Aviary, part of the Jurassic section of the Aquarium.

Fun Fact: The D is silent.

Personality & History: Django is, so far, our only Cycnorhamphus. The first Cycnorhamphus genome was pretty buggy, and as a result, only the wing finger properly developed on his left hand. He seems to get around fine with it. Django tends to isolate himself from the other pterosaurs, particularly the other Ctenochasmatoids. This doesn’t apply to the Rhamphorhynchus sisters, though. He often spends time near them, and in turn, Django is the only other pterosaur the Rhamphorhynchus won’t try to chase away.

Django likes altitude. We’ve observed him trying to climb on the ledges of the aviary’s framework, with mixed results. Even with one hand incompletely developed, he’s got a pretty good grip. He often tries standing on keepers’ heads when they enter the aviary. In response, we built him a special roosting platform near the top of the aviary, and he spends much of his time there, judging the other pterosaurs.

As with all the other pterosaurs in the aviary, Django has a special diet. This includes hard-shelled organisms, including mussels and snails, but also softer foods like worms, fish, and even the occasional jellyfish! For hard-shelled food, he holds the shell on his lower jaw, using his right hand to position it, and uses the upper jaw projections to cleave it open.

[mastcomm]

Fossilized Tooth Captures a Pterosaur’s Failed Squid Meal

About 150 million years ago, a pterosaur experienced an embarrassing mealtime mishap. Attempting to catch and eat a seafood snack, the flying reptile came away one tooth short.

At least, that is the chain of events suggested by a fossil described earlier this week in Scientific Reports: a preserved cephalopod with a pterosaur tooth embedded inside of it.

This “fossilized action snapshot” is the first evidence scientists have that these winged contemporaries of dinosaurs ate prehistoric squid, or at least tried, said Jean-Paul Billon Bruyat, an expert in prehistoric reptiles who was not involved in the research.

The fossil also joins a small group of records that hint at the ecological relationships between ancient creatures.

The specimen, which was found in Germany’s Solnhofen fossil beds, is an 11-inch-long coleoid cephalopod, a precursor to today’s squids, octopuses and cuttlefish. It is preserved well enough that its ink sac and fins are readily visible, as is the very sharp-looking tooth stuck just below its head.

René Hoffmann, an author of the paper and a postdoctoral researcher at Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany and an expert in prehistoric cephalopods, came across a photo of the fossil last year and was immediately intrigued.

“Two fossils together could give us an idea of predator-prey relationships,” he said.

Based on the tooth’s shape, size and texture, along with the fossil’s location and age, the tooth probably belonged to Rhamphorhynchus muensteri. The species had a five-foot wingspan, said Jordan Bestwick, a paleobiologist at the University of Leicester in England who specializes in pterosaur diets and was an author of the paper.

Rhamphorhynchus hunted fish, likely by flying over the water and snapping them up. But this is the first direct evidence that these pterosaurs also had a taste for cephalopods, said Dr. Bestwick.

It is also the only record of “a failed predation attempt” made by any pterosaur. (Sorry, bud.)

The researchers also used ultraviolet light — which can differentiate between sediment and formerly living tissue — to determine if the tooth was stuck inside the cephalopod when both were fossilized, not merely lying on top. Overlap between the mantle tissue and the tip of the tooth showed that the tooth was embedded least half an inch deep.

Once that was settled, the researchers imagined the scenario.

Reconstructing ancient encounters is always “highly speculative,” said Dr. Hoffmann. But he pictured the pterosaur flying over the water when its shadow scared a group of cephalopods, which began jumping out of the water.

“Then the pterosaur grabbed one, but not perfectly,” said Dr. Hoffmann. The cephalopod thrashed around. It managed to get away — and took the reptile’s tooth with it.

For the sea creature, a daring escape. For the pterosaur, a calamari calamity.

But one that led to some scientific insight, at least. “It is very difficult to demonstrate a fossilized predator-prey relationship,” said Dr. Billon-Bruyat. Paleontologists sometimes find preserved prey within a predator’s stomach or throat, or inside fossilized feces, called coprolites.

Occasionally, more creative interspecies encounters are preserved. Last year, Dr. Billon-Bruyat was part of a team that studied the shell of an ancient sea turtle that had apparently been stepped on by a sauropod.

And the tables may have been turned on some pterosaurs. They have been found often enough next to a fossilized large prehistoric fish called Aspidorhynchus that some researchers think the flying reptiles were frequently seized by the fish.

Although Dr. Billon-Bruyat is convinced by the new paper’s interpretation of the cephalopod fossil, other experts are less certain.

Because the tooth is embedded in soft tissue rather than bone, it is possible the two became entangled in some other way, said Jingmai O’Connor, a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing: “Perhaps the squid fell to the bottom of the sea when it died and landed on a pterosaur tooth.”

Dr. O’Connor also wondered why pterosaurs would have eaten cephalopods if doing so was so risky, although she granted that everyone has bad luck.

“I’ve broken a tooth eating a samosa,” she said. “So nearly anything is possible.”

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/fossilized-tooth-captures-a-pterosaurs-failed-squid-meal/

[rbbox]

Aerodactylus

Aerodactylus

Aerodactylus (meaning "wind finger") is a genus of pterosaurs containing a single species, Aerodactylus scolopaciceps, previously regarded as a species of Pterodactylus. The fossil remains of this species have been found only in the Solnhofen limestone of Bavaria, Germany, dated to the late Jurassic Period (early Tithonian), about 150.8–148.5 million years ago. Like all pterosaurs, the wings of Aerodactylus were formed by a skin and muscle membrane stretching from its elongated fourth finger to its hind limbs. It was supported internally by collagen fibres and externally by keratinous ridges. Several well preserved fossils have shown that Aerodactylus was covered in a short, dense coat of bristly pycnofibres, and that it had a rounded triangular crest on its head, as well as a backward-pointing lappet. It is named after the Pokémon, Aerodactyl.

Description

Size of the largest known specimen (MCZ 1505) compared with a human. Aerodactylus is known from six fossil specimens, and though all of them are juveniles, all preserve complete skeletons. The discovery of several specimens with well-preserved soft tissue traces has allowed scientists to faithfully reconstruct the life appearance of Aerodactylus. The skulls of Aerodactylus were long and narrow with about 64 teeth which were more crowded towards the jaw tips. The teeth extended back from the tips of both jaws, and the tooth row ended before the front of the nasoantorbital fenestra, the largest opening in the skull. Unlike some related species, the skull and upper jaw was curved slightly upward, not straight. A small, hooked beak was present in the very tips of the jaws, with both upper and lower hook no larger than the teeth that surrounded them. The neck was long, and covered in long, bristle-like pycnofibres. A throat pouch extended from about the middle of the lower jaw to the upper part of the neck. Aerodactylus, like related pterosaurs, had a crest on its skull composed mainly of soft tissues along the top of the skull. One specimen (MCZ 1505, the counter slab of BSP 1883 XVI 1) shows a roughly triangular soft tissue crest extending upward above the posterior half of the naso-antorbital fenestra and the eye; the crest was 44 to 51 mm long (around 38 to 45% of the total length of the skull) and reached a maximum height of 9,5 mm. Life restoration based on specimen MCZ 1505, by Matthew Martyniuk. Bennett (2013) noted that other authors claimed that the soft tissue crest of Pterodactylus extended backward behind the skull; Bennett himself, however, didn't find any evidence for the crest extending past the back of the skull. The back of the skull bore a small crest or "lappet" which pointed backward in a cone-shaped structure. The lappet was composed mainly of long, stiffened fibres twisted together in a spiral pattern inside a conical sheath of soft tissue. The wings were long, and the wing membranes appear to have lacked the furry covering of pycnofibres present in some other pterosaurs (such as Pterorhynchus and Jeholopterus). The wing membrane extended between the fingers and toes as webbing, and a uropatagium (secondary membrane between the feet and tail) was present, as well as a propatagium (membrane between the wrist and shoulder). Both the finger and toe claws were covered in keratin sheaths that extended and curved into sharp hooks well beyond their bony cores.

History

Specimen preserving a soft-tissue head crest and lappet (BSP 1883 XVI 1). In 1850 Hermann von Meyer described the specimen now known by its collection number BSP AS V 29 a/b as a new specimen of Pterodactylus longirostris. Pterodactylus longirostris is a junior synonym of Ornithocephalus antiquus, but Pterodactylus replaced Ornithocephalus through popular use. The specimen BSP AS V 29 a/b was discussed again in Meyer’s Fauna der Vorwelt (1860), this time under the name Pterodactylus scolopaciceps. Both Zittel and Wagner took exception to Meyer’s new species and it was synonymized with P. kochi in 1883. Broili described a second specimen and used the name P. scolopaciceps, confident that it was a valid species. However, the name slipped into obscurity and Wellnhofer considered it a junior synonym of P. kochi. In 2013 P. kochi was reviewed by Bennet and synonymised with P. antiquus. Vidovic and Martill disagreed with the findings of Bennett and considered the content of P. kochi to be paraphyletic. When Vidovic and Martill separated P. scolopaciceps from P. kochi they considered it so distinct they gave it the genus name Aerodactylus, formed from the Greek words for "wind finger", but chosen in reference to the Nintendo Pokémon character Aerodactyl, which was based on an amalgamation of different pterosaurian features. source - Wikipedia Dear friends, if you liked our post, please do not forget to share and comment like this. If you want to share your information with us, please send us your post with your name and photo at RBbox.in@gmail.com. We will publish your post with your name and photo. thanks for joining us www.rbbox.in

from Blogger https://ift.tt/2xZ45ic

[zeroviraluniverse-blog]

Archaeopteryx was an active flyer -- ScienceDaily

Visit Now - http://zeroviral.com/archaeopteryx-was-an-active-flyer-sciencedaily/

Archaeopteryx was an active flyer -- ScienceDaily

The question of whether the Late Jurassic dino-bird Archaeopteryx was an elaborately feathered ground dweller, a glider, or an active flyer has fascinated palaeontologists for decades. Valuable new information obtained with state-of-the-art synchrotron microtomography at the ESRF, the European Synchrotron (Grenoble, France), allowed an international team of scientists to answer this question in Nature Communications. The wing bones of Archaeopteryx were shaped for incidental active flight, but not for the advanced style of flying mastered by today’s birds.

Was Archaeopteryx capable of flying, and if so, how? Although it is common knowledge that modern-day birds descended from extinct dinosaurs, many questions on their early evolution and the development of avian flight remain unanswered. Traditional research methods have thus far been unable to answer the question whether Archaeopteryx flew or not. Using synchrotron microtomography at the ESRF’s beamline ID19 to probe inside Archaeopteryx fossils, an international team of scientists from the ESRF, Palacký University, Czech Republic, CNRS and Sorbonne University, France, Uppsala University, Sweden, and Bürgermeister-Müller-Museum Solnhofen, Germany, shed new light on this earliest of birds.

Reconstructing extinct behaviour poses substantial challenges for palaeontologists, especially when it comes to enigmatic animals such as the famous Archaeopteryx from the Late Jurassic sediments of southeastern Germany that is considered the oldest potentially free-flying dinosaur. This well-preserved fossil taxon shows a mosaic anatomy that illustrates the close family relations between extinct raptorial dinosaurs and living dinosaurs: the birds. Most modern bird skeletons are highly specialised for powered flight, yet many of their characteristic adaptations in particularly the shoulder are absent in the Bavarian fossils of Archaeopteryx. Although its feathered wings resemble those of modern birds flying overhead every day, the primitive shoulder structure is incompatible with the modern avian wing beat cycle.

“The cross-sectional architecture of limb bones is strongly influenced by evolutionary adaptation towards optimal strength at minimal mass, and functional adaptation to the forces experienced during life,” explains Prof. Jorge Cubo of the Sorbonne University in Paris. “By statistically comparing the bones of living animals that engage in observable habits with those of cryptic fossils, it is possible to bring new information into an old discussion,” says senior author Dr. Sophie Sanchez from Uppsala University, Sweden

Archaeopteryx skeletons are preserved in and on limestone slabs that reveal only part of their morphology. Since these fossils are among the most valuable in the world, invasive probing to reveal obscured or internal structures is therefore highly discouraged. “Fortunately, today it is no longer necessary to damage precious fossils,” states Dr. Paul Tafforeau, beamline scientist at the ESRF. “The exceptional sensitivity of X-ray imaging techniques for investigating large specimens that is available at the ESRF offers harmless microscopic insight into fossil bones and allows virtual 3D reconstructions of extraordinary quality. Exciting upgrades are underway, including a substantial improvement of the properties of our synchrotron source and a brand new beamline designated for tomography. These developments promise to give even better results on much larger specimens in the future.”

Scanning data unexpectedly revealed that the wing bones of Archaeopteryx, contrary to its shoulder girdle, shared important adaptations with those of modern flying birds. “We focused on the middle part of the arm bones because we knew those sections contain clear flight-related signals in birds,” says Dr. Emmanuel de Margerie, CNRS, France. “We immediately noticed that the bone walls of Archaeopteryx were much thinner than those of earthbound dinosaurs but looked a lot like conventional bird bones,” continues lead author Dennis Voeten of the ESRF. “Data analysis furthermore demonstrated that the bones of Archaeopteryx plot closest to those of birds like pheasants that occasionally use active flight to cross barriers or dodge predators, but not to those of gliding and soaring forms such as many birds of prey and some seabirds that are optimised for enduring flight.”

“We know that the region around Solnhofen in southeastern Germany was a tropical archipelago, and such an environment appears highly suitable for island hopping or escape flight,” remarks Dr. Martin Röper, Archaeopteryx curator and co-author of the report. “Archaeopteryx shared the Jurassic skies with primitive pterosaurs that would ultimately evolve into the gigantic pterosaurs of the Cretaceous. We found similar differences in wing bone geometry between primitive and advanced pterosaurs as those between actively flying and soaring birds,” adds Vincent Beyrand of the ESRF.

Since Archaeopteryx represents the oldest known flying member of the avialan lineage that also includes modern birds, these findings not only illustrate aspects of the lifestyle of Archaeopteryx but also provide insight into the early evolution of dinosaurian flight. “Indeed, we now know that Archaeopteryx was already actively flying around 150 million years ago, which implies that active dinosaurian flight had evolved even earlier!” says Prof. Stanislav Bureš of Palacký University in Olomouc. “However, because Archaeopteryx lacked the pectoral adaptations to fly like modern birds, the way it achieved powered flight must also have been different. We will need to return to the fossils to answer the question on exactly how this Bavarian icon of evolution used its wings,” concludes Voeten.

It is now clear that Archaeopteryx is a representative of the first wave of dinosaurian flight strategies that eventually went extinct, leaving only the modern avian flight stroke directly observable today.

[mastcomm]

Fossilized Tooth Captures a Pterosaur’s Failed Squid Meal

About 150 million years ago, a pterosaur experienced an embarrassing mealtime mishap. Attempting to catch and eat a seafood snack, the flying reptile came away one tooth short.

At least, that is the chain of events suggested by a fossil described earlier this week in Scientific Reports: a preserved cephalopod with a pterosaur tooth embedded inside of it.

This “fossilized action snapshot” is the first evidence scientists have that these winged contemporaries of dinosaurs ate prehistoric squid, or at least tried, said Jean-Paul Billon Bruyat, an expert in prehistoric reptiles who was not involved in the research.

The fossil also joins a small group of records that hint at the ecological relationships between ancient creatures.

The specimen, which was found in Germany’s Solnhofen fossil beds, is an 11-inch-long coleoid cephalopod, a precursor to today’s squids, octopuses and cuttlefish. It is preserved well enough that its ink sac and fins are readily visible, as is the very sharp-looking tooth stuck just below its head.

René Hoffmann, an author of the paper and a postdoctoral researcher at Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany and an expert in prehistoric cephalopods, came across a photo of the fossil last year and was immediately intrigued.

“Two fossils together could give us an idea of predator-prey relationships,” he said.

Based on the tooth’s shape, size and texture, along with the fossil’s location and age, the tooth probably belonged to Rhamphorhynchus muensteri. The species had a five-foot wingspan, said Jordan Bestwick, a paleobiologist at the University of Leicester in England who specializes in pterosaur diets and was an author of the paper.

Rhamphorhynchus hunted fish, likely by flying over the water and snapping them up. But this is the first direct evidence that these pterosaurs also had a taste for cephalopods, said Dr. Bestwick.

It is also the only record of “a failed predation attempt” made by any pterosaur. (Sorry, bud.)

The researchers also used ultraviolet light — which can differentiate between sediment and formerly living tissue — to determine if the tooth was stuck inside the cephalopod when both were fossilized, not merely lying on top. Overlap between the mantle tissue and the tip of the tooth showed that the tooth was embedded least half an inch deep.

Once that was settled, the researchers imagined the scenario.

Reconstructing ancient encounters is always “highly speculative,” said Dr. Hoffmann. But he pictured the pterosaur flying over the water when its shadow scared a group of cephalopods, which began jumping out of the water.

“Then the pterosaur grabbed one, but not perfectly,” said Dr. Hoffmann. The cephalopod thrashed around. It managed to get away — and took the reptile’s tooth with it.

For the sea creature, a daring escape. For the pterosaur, a calamari calamity.

But one that led to some scientific insight, at least. “It is very difficult to demonstrate a fossilized predator-prey relationship,” said Dr. Billon-Bruyat. Paleontologists sometimes find preserved prey within a predator’s stomach or throat, or inside fossilized feces, called coprolites.

Occasionally, more creative interspecies encounters are preserved. Last year, Dr. Billon-Bruyat was part of a team that studied the shell of an ancient sea turtle that had apparently been stepped on by a sauropod.

And the tables may have been turned on some pterosaurs. They have been found often enough next to a fossilized large prehistoric fish called Aspidorhynchus that some researchers think the flying reptiles were frequently seized by the fish.

Although Dr. Billon-Bruyat is convinced by the new paper’s interpretation of the cephalopod fossil, other experts are less certain.

Because the tooth is embedded in soft tissue rather than bone, it is possible the two became entangled in some other way, said Jingmai O’Connor, a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing: “Perhaps the squid fell to the bottom of the sea when it died and landed on a pterosaur tooth.”

Dr. O’Connor also wondered why pterosaurs would have eaten cephalopods if doing so was so risky, although she granted that everyone has bad luck.

“I’ve broken a tooth eating a samosa,” she said. “So nearly anything is possible.”

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/fossilized-tooth-captures-a-pterosaurs-failed-squid-meal/