Scientists have let out at least 47 skeletons from a new species of flying reptile in southern Brazil . allot to thePLOS ONEstudy , the species , which has been namedCaiuajara dobruskii , represents a raw pterosaur . The discovery is exciting not only because of the unmixed number of well - preserve specimens unearthed , but also because pterosaur had never been found in declamatory groups before which offer some insight into how they may have lived .
Pterosaurs , which made an coming into court in Jurassic Park III , are an extinct group of fly reptiles that have been chance upon onevery continent . Aside from their apparent far-flung dispersion , scientists actually know relatively small about pterosaurs due to the fact that the fogy record of these reptiles is patchy . This is because most of the specimens recovered previously were incomplete and badly document . Furthermore , the majority of pterosaur species have been establish on only one skeleton . The new find , however , offers us an enormous amount of entropy on these enigmatic fauna .
The remarkably well - preserve specimens were unearth from a rare osseous tissue bed containing hundreds of pterosaur bone . The site is alake depositof a Cretaceous period desert located near Cruzeiro do Oeste , southerly Brazil . The finding was therefore surprising kick in the fact that the legal age of pterosaurs discovered so far have been found in coastal areas or laguna . This peculiar clade had also never been found this far south before .
C. dobruskiiwas equipped with a big wingspan of up to7.7 feet(2.35 metre ) and wear an strange bony expansion from the skull that projected in front of its eye . The specimen found also ranged in age from juvenile person to grownup , allowing the researchers to document the changes that occurred as they progress into adulthood . The independent obviousdifferencesobserved between younger and older specimens were the sizing and slant of the bony tip . Since the juvenile and adult skeleton in the closet were not strikingly different , the research worker paint a picture that that this mintage could likely aviate from a very youthful eld .
The fact that so many specimen were unveil from one expanse also advise that this species was sociable and lived in colony ; this finicky chemical group dwelled around an inland lake situated in a desert .
The researchers are n’t sure why these reptilian give way , but they reason that a drouth or desert storm could be responsible for .
accord to pterosaur expert Mark Witton , the story may not be over yet as he is fairly confident that the site may yield even more specimen , National Geographicreports .
[ ViaNational GeographicandPLOS ONE ]
