Gabriel Ugueto/Curtin University
An artist’s impression of Haliskia peterseni
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news about fascinating discoveries, scientific developments and more.
CNN
—
An amateur paleontologist has discovered a new species of pterosaur, a flying reptile that lived alongside dinosaurs about 100 million years ago.
Kevin Petersen, an avocado farmer and curator of the Kronosaurus Korner fossil museum in northwest Queensland, Australia, unearthed a number of fossilized bones in western Queensland in 2021.
These have since been identified as belonging to Haliskia peterseni, a new genus and species of pterosaur, according to a statement from a team from Curtin University in Perth, who led the research, published in the journal Scientific Reports on Wednesday.
“With a wingspan of approximately 4.6 meters, Haliskia would have been a fearsome predator some 100 million years ago, when much of central western Queensland was underwater, covered by a vast inland sea and globally located where Victoria’s southern coastline now lies,” researches lead author Adele Pentland, PhD candidate at Curtin’s School. of Earth and Planetary Sciences, the statement said.
The giant creature was the first vertebrate to develop the ability to fly and lived alongside dinosaurs during the Mesozoic Era, which began about 252 million years ago.
“Pterosaurs are winged reptiles that had a wing made of a skin membrane, so in some ways they resemble a bat, but they are very different and alien in terms of the shape of their heads,” Pentland told CNN.
Haliskia would have hunted for fish and squid-like cephalopods in the inland sea, where large marine reptiles such as plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs live, but he would have had to come ashore to lay his eggs, Pentland told CNN.
It would have been preyed upon by large marine reptiles such as Kronosaurus, whose skull alone would have been 2.4 meters long, they added.
“Haliskia wouldn’t have stood a chance against such a beast,” Pentland said.
Since the 1980s, fewer than 25 sets of pterosaur remains from four species have been found in Australia, while more than 100 sets have been found in Brazil and Argentina.
In finding Haliskia, Petersen found the most complete specimen of any pterosaur discovered in Australia to this day, Pentland said in the statement, praising Petersen for his “careful preparation” of the remains.
“Haliskia is 22 percent complete, making it more than twice as complete as the only other known partial pterosaur skeleton found in Australia,” she said, adding that it includes “complete mandibles, the tip of the upper jaw, 43 teeth, vertebrae , ribs, bones of both wings and part of a leg.
It also contained “very thin and delicate throat bones, which indicated a muscular tongue, which helped during feeding on fish and cephalopods,” she added.
Pentland told CNN that she “didn’t expect the specimen to be as complete as it was.”
The fossil will become part of the Kronosaurus Korner collection, and Petersen said he was excited about the find.
“I am thrilled that my discovery is a new species, because my passion lies in helping shape our modern knowledge of prehistoric species,” he said in the statement.
Next, Pentland will continue to work with regional museums in Australia to describe new fossil material, as well as work with researchers in Brazil, she told CNN.
In May 2023, another study led by Pentland found that pterosaurs flew in the Australian skies as early as 107 million years ago.
Paleontologists came to this conclusion after examining two pieces of prehistoric bone recovered more than 30 years ago from Dinosaur Cove – a fossil-bearing site in the Australian state of Victoria.
The samples turned out to be the oldest pterosaur remains ever recovered in the country, according to the study published in the scientific journal History Biology.