New winged dinosaur species uncovered on Scottish island with links to China

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A brand new winged dinosaur has been found on a Scottish island.

Scientists have found the brand new species of pterosaur, named Ceoptera evansae, on the Isle of Skye.

The winged reptile lived between 168 to 166 million years in the past throughout the Middle Jurassic interval.

The new species belongs to a bunch of pterosaurs often called Darwinoptera, with many fossils additionally present in China.

Palaeontologists noticed the fossil stays in 2006 throughout a discipline journey to Elgol, on the south-west coast of the island.

Since then, the group have spent years bodily getting ready the specimen and taking scans of the bones, a few of which stay fully embedded in rock.

Despite the skeleton being incomplete – with solely elements of the shoulders, wings, legs and spine remaining – the researchers mentioned it supplies key insights into the evolutionary historical past and variety of pterosaurs.

Findings, revealed within the Journal Of Vertebrate Paleontology, recommend Darwinoptera could have been significantly extra various than beforehand thought, persisting for greater than 25 million years.

Professor Paul Barrett, advantage researcher on the Natural History Museum, mentioned: “Ceoptera helps to narrow down the timing of several major events in the evolution of flying reptiles.

“Its appearance in the Middle Jurassic of the UK was a complete surprise, as most of its close relatives are from China.

“It shows that the advanced group of flying reptiles to which it belongs appeared earlier than we thought and quickly gained an almost worldwide distribution.”

Ceoptera evansae will get the primary a part of its title from the Scottish gaelic phrase “cheo”, which means mist or fog, and the Latin phrase “ptera”, which means wing.

The second half, evansae, honours British palaeontologist Professor Susan E Evans for her years of scientific work, notably on the Isle of Skye.

As the Elgol coastal web site is classed as a Site of Special Scientific Interest, the group led by Prof Barrett may solely acquire specimens from rocks that had fallen on to the seaside.

But whereas crawling over boulders to look at these fossils, the researchers seen a number of bones protruding, which has now been revealed as the brand new pterosaur.

Lead creator Dr Liz Martin-Silverstone, a palaeobiologist from the University of Bristol, mentioned: “The time period that Ceoptera is from is one of the most important periods of pterosaur evolution, and is also one in which we have some of the fewest specimens, indicating its significance.

“To find that there were more bones embedded within the rock, some of which were integral in identifying what kind of pterosaur Ceoptera is, made this an even better find than initially thought.

“It brings us one step closer to understanding where and when the more advanced pterosaurs evolved.”

The researchers mentioned that pterosaur fossils from the Middle Jurassic interval are uncommon and principally incomplete, hindering makes an attempt to perceive extra about how these creatures developed.