A fossil of a huge flying reptile known as pterosaur from the Jurassic period has been discovered on the Isle of Skye in Scotland.
The discovery of Dearc has confirmed that pterosaurs grew to the size of fighter jets, just before the extinction of dinosaurs 66 million years ago.
University of Edinburgh website quoted Natalia Jagielska from the School of GeoSciences as saying, “Dearc is a fantastic example of why palaeontology will never cease to be astounding.
Jagielska added, “To achieve flight, pterosaurs had hollow bones with thin bone walls, making their remains incredibly fragile and unfit to preserving for millions of years.
Dearc is the biggest pterosaur we know from the Jurassic period and that tells us that pterosaurs got larger much earlier than we thought, long before the Cretaceous period when they were competing with birds, and that’s hugely significant,” Professor Steve Brusatte from the School of GeoSciences was quoted as saying by University of Edinburgh website.