Round 76 million years in the past, one thing took a chunk out of a younger pterosaur.
Pterosaurs have been giant, flying reptiles that roamed our planet’s skies when dinosaurs dominated the Earth. Some species have been giants. However even their giant dimension didn’t preserve them off the menu.
Paleontologists have found a tooth mark in a neck vertebra of a pterosaur that died in what’s now Alberta. In a paper printed final week in The Journal of Paleontology, they counsel that the tooth mark was made by a prehistoric relative of the crocodile that both snatched the younger pterosaur from the shore or scavenged its useless physique. The fossil is now on show on the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta.
Pterosaurs got here in all sizes and shapes and have been discovered worldwide throughout their tenure on the planet, which lasted from 220 million to 65 million years in the past. However they’d fragile bones that have been usually destroyed earlier than being preserved within the fossil file. Paleontologists principally discover neck and finger bones for this species, and that makes them “fairly mysterious,” mentioned David Hone, a paleontologist at Queen Mary College of London who was not concerned within the analysis.
However scientists truly “have a a lot better concept of what was consuming pterosaurs than what they have been consuming,” mentioned Caleb Brown, a paleontologist and curator on the Royal Tyrrell Museum who was among the many authors of the brand new research. Paleontologists have thus far found solely round 4 pterosaur fossils that counsel that predators sometimes dined on these winged reptiles — together with a neck bone with crocodile-like enamel marks present in Romania and a partly digested lengthy bone within the stomach of a velociraptor uncovered in Mongolia.
This newest fossil — a two-inch neck vertebra — was discovered by college students throughout a dig in 2023 within the Dinosaur Park Formation within the badlands of Alberta. The world is so wealthy in stays that “you actually can’t stroll with out stepping on dinosaur bones,” Dr. Brown mentioned.
He and his group on the museum recognized the fossil as belonging to a younger Cryodrakon boreas. Full-grown members of this species had wingspans of greater than 30 toes. This youngling was nonetheless rising and had reached a wingspan of solely round six toes when it died.
Whereas analyzing the fossil, Dr. Brown seen what appeared like a small chunk mark. The group examined the puncture gap underneath a microscope and despatched the bone for a CT scan. What they discovered was in line with a puncture made by a tooth when the bone was nonetheless contemporary.
Figuring out the biter was the following piece of the puzzle. There have been many potential candidates. Though Cretaceous Alberta was farther north than it’s at the moment, it was a lush, tropical space that bordered an inland sea. Wetlands close to the open water have been residence to many giant dinosaurs, crocodilians and mammalians.
However dinosaurs appeared like unlikely culprits. Dinosaur species who lived within the space on the time had blade- or D-shaped enamel that didn’t match the round form of the outlet. Crocodilians, however, do make circular-shaped punctures. The opening can also be the suitable dimension for 2 species of crocs that coexisted with large pterosaurs. For Dr. Brown, that made a crocodilian predator or scavenger the “almost definitely candidate” for the chunk mark.
Even with a probable suspect, nobody is aware of what the younger pterosaur’s final moments have been like. Did it die and turn into a “free lunch” for a hungry crocodilian that occurred upon its physique, as Dr. Brown speculated? Or was it the sufferer of an ambush?
Each explanations are attainable. Like alligators and crocodiles at the moment, their forebears within the Cretaceous interval “most likely grabbed regardless of the hell they’re capable of get their mouth round,” Dr. Hone mentioned. “It’s what crocs do.”