Scientists say they have unearthed a rare cemetery in Chile, with well-preserved bones of ancient flying reptiles that roamed the Atacama Desert in the Andean country more than 100 million years ago.
Scientists determined that the remains belong to pterosaurs, flying creatures that lived alongside dinosaurs, which had long wingspans and fed by filtering water through long, thin teeth, similar to flamingos.
The group of scientists, led by Jhonatan Alarcon, a researcher at the University of Chile, has been looking for pterosaurs for years, but this discovery exceeded their expectations.
“This has global relevance because this type of discovery is relatively rare,” Alarcon said. “Almost all over the world, the remains of pterosaurs found are isolated.”
The discovery of this unusual graveyard will allow scientists to study the pterosaurs’ habits, not just their anatomy, he said.
“We could determine how the groups of these animals were composed, whether they raised their young or not,” he added.
Another unexpected surprise was how well preserved the bones the scientists discovered were.
“Most of the pterosaur bones found are broken,” said David Rubilar, head of paleontology at Chile’s National Museum of Natural History. “However, we were able to recover three-dimensional bones preserved at that location.”
This helps scientists better understand pterosaur anatomy.
The discovery was made 65 km from another site where other pterosaur remains were found. This finding supports the scientists’ hypothesis that pterosaurs were common in northern Chile.
