A fossil of a pterosaur, a giant winged reptile, was discovered on the Scottish Islands. The airplane-sized creatures soared through the skies as dinosaurs walked the Earth. They were the first vertebrate animal to evolve powered flight. The spectacular three-dimensional fossil was found on the shore of the Isle of Skye, off the west coast of Scotland.
The species had a wingspan of more than 2.5 metres and the fossil is the biggest pterosaur ever discovered from the Jurassic period. The creature last flapped its wings 170 million years ago. It was equipped with sharp teeth, which would have caught fish and it still retained shiny enamel.
Pterosaurs lived during the Cretaceous period, right before the asteroid strike that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. The creature reached the size of fighter jets, with a 12-metre wingspan. The fossil confirms that pterosaurs were already very large during that point in their evolutionary history.
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