Another New Pterosaur Discovery

Pterosaurs have been interesting additions to movies about dinosaurs and such, and most of us probably can picture the winged reptiles. What may be less known is that there were many types. Big ones, little ones, many teeth, no teeth — in many parts of the world. Now paleontologists have added another one.

Credit: Modified from an image at Wikimedia Commons by Antonio R. Mihaila (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The hands at the Darwin Ranch are so excited about this, they are going to add it to the festivities when they dance around the maypole. But they still don't know where to place it on the failed evolutionary tree, and have no evidence of its evolution. We may be tempted to say, "Big deal, another flying reptile". Well, it is a discovery, and we can expect additional news about recent pterosaur fossils because some are very well preserved and have soft tissues. That is always bad news for proponents of deep time because these critters were created far more recently than they believe.

Pterosaurs were amazing flying reptiles that came in all shapes and sizes. Not surprisingly, when these bizarre creatures are found in the fossil record they are 100% flying reptiles. Some achieve the size of a fighter jet, such as Quetzalcoatlus discovered in Texas or Hatzegopteryx in Romania. Paleobiologists have recently discovered a new pterosaur (Afrotapejara zouhrii) in Africa belonging to a group called the tapejarids that were small to medium-sized toothless pterosaurs.

To see what the flap is about, wing on over to the short article, "New Pterosaur Discovered".



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