Posted on 02/12/2008 12:54:52 PM PST by Paleo Conservative
A pterodactyl so small that you could hold it in your hand glided in forest canopies in northeastern China where it feasted on insects 120 million years ago, new fossil remains suggest.Paleontologists discovered the nearly complete skeleton of a toothless mini-pterodactyl, called Nemicolopterus crypticus, in the western part of China's Liaoning Province.
With a wingspan of nearly 10 inches (25 centimeters), this half-pint represents the smallest pterosaur, a group of winged reptiles that shared a common ancestor with dinosaurs and ruled the skies during the Jurassic period (206 million to 144 million years ago) and the subsequent Cretaceous period, which ended 65 million years ago.
"The animal is a very young animal, but it's not a hatchling that just left the egg," said researcher Alexander Kellner of the Department of Geology and Paleontology at the Museu Nacional/Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. "Therefore it is the smallest pterosaur ever found."
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Cool!
Cool! Where can I get one?
It’d make a great pet.
Ptero-Ping.
I wonder what it tasted like... Chicken maybe? Or maybe iguana... ;-) j/k
Petri!
How darling! What a little cutie. I want one.
Ptoo Cute!
You’re Ptoo Phunny!
LOL!
Ptiny Pterodactyl - Pterrific!
Awwww, some on, scientists; if you find this ones’ DNA preserved in a fly preserved in amber (or whatever...)- try to bring him back! So cute.
If any dinosaur had a chance of surviving the big asteroid it would have been this one. It had small body mass, it could fly, it ate insects.
Have there been any intriguing reports?
Hmmmm....never thought of that before...
Crows gr gr gr gr gr gr gr gr gr gr gr gr gr grgr gr gr gr gr gr grgr gr gr gr gr gr grgr gr gr gr gr gr grgr gr gr gr gr gr grgr gr gr gr gr gr grgr gr gr gr gr gr grgr gr gr gr gr gr grgr gr gr gr gr gr grgr gr gr gr gr gr gr
grandparent???
It's not a dinosaur; it's a pterosaur. It lived about 55 million years prior to the KT extinction event. There is a tendency for organisms to get larger over time unless there is some evolutionry pressure to select for a small size. Perhaps all the remaining pterosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous were too large to survive.
Pterodactyl thread’s over an hour old and not a SINGLE Hillary joke?!
You folks are slackin’.
Po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe.
Hey, it’s small enough to cook in a popcorn popper............
ping to me to save for my dinosaur-crazy daughter
We shoudl find out if Helen Thomas had one as a pet when she was a youngster.
Good, but please do inform her that pterodactyls are not dinosaurs.
She’s already informed me of the fact!
“Gee, Mom, don’t you know anything?”
Probably tasted a good deal like whooping crane.
How do the scientists know the animal ate insects? Perhaps he could peck out the eyes of dinosaurs whose arms were to short to protect their faces. Then, hundreds of predators could show up.
Oh man, my fave, Pterdactyl and dumplings.
Pteradactyl caccatori?
Pteraturduchin, a cajin dish.
Fricassee of pteradactyl.
and of course country fried dactyl.
Probably comparative anatomy with other vertbrates that eat insects, plus the size of the animal.
|
|
|||
Gods |
Thanks Martin, and PCottraux for the additional ping. |
||
|
· Mirabilis · Texas AM Anthropology News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · · History or Science & Nature Podcasts · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists · |
|||
Wingspan?
Nearly ten inches?
Hah!! I still got braggin rights!
LOL! If you think about it, most bugs back then were probably bigger than he was! Noble try though!
Ah yes, this toy breed was kept as a pet in all the nicest caves.
If they were still around, male gay couples would probably just carry them around.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
