(CN) — The Isle of Skye is the burial ground of a newly uncovered pterosaur species.
A scientific team found the partial skeleton of a single individual embedded on the Scottish island, according to their study published Monday in the Journal of Vertebrae Paleontology. The scientists come from the Natural History Museum, University of Bristol, University of Leicester and University of Liverpool.
The team named the species Ceoptera evansae. Ceoptera comes from the Scottish Gaelic word "Cheò," meaning “mist” — a reference to the common Gaelic name for the Isle of Skye, “Eilean a’ Cheò,” or “Isle of Mist." The second half, -ptera, comes from the Latin word meaning “wing.” As for evansae, the team said they wanted to honor Professor Susan E. Evans for her years of anatomical and paleontological research, particularly on the Isle of Skye.
This carefully named species came with parts of the shoulder, wings, legs and backbone, which lead study author Liz Martin-Silverstone said via email was surprising, because most pterosaur fossils are rare and incomplete finds.
“Pterosaurs had very fragile skeletons that tend to only preserve under very exceptional circumstances,” said Martin-Silverstone, a paleobiologist from the University of Bristol. “Unfortunately, as it currently stands, most places that we find Middle Jurassic fossils in the world today come from environments that weren’t very conducive to preserving pterosaurs. You need exactly the right conditions to preserve them, and those rocks just don’t exist in many places in the world.”
The Isle of Skye was one of those ideal places, though Ceoptera came with its own complications. After all, the scientists said that CT-scanning was the only way to study many of the fossil's completely rock-embedded bones.
Regardless of that challenge, the scientists learned that Ceoptera evolved well before the Early Jurassic period. In fact, their research showed that this latest member of the Darwinoptera pterosaur clade persisted for over 25 million years, from the late Early Jurassic to the latest Jurassic. This means that Ceoptera lived around the same time as the avialans, the dinosaurs that evolved into modern-day birds, which senior study author Paul Barrett said reveals more information about pterosaur evolution.
“Ceoptera helps to narrow down the timing of several major events in the evolution of flying reptiles,” said Barrett, a professor and merit researcher with the Natural History Museum. “Its appearance in the Middle Jurassic of the U.K. was a complete surprise, as most of its close relatives are from China. It shows that the advanced group of flying reptiles to which it belongs appeared earlier than we thought and quickly gained an almost worldwide distribution.”
Beyond what they know now, Martin-Silverstone said there are still opportunities for future study if the scientists can work around the rocks.
“I think that a few more studies will come from this fossil, including looking into the age of the animal a bit more,” said Martin-Silverstone. “We think it was an adult, but we’d like to confirm this in other ways. And I also hope someone does more digital imaging of the specimen using a synchrotron or higher energy, to see if we can see more within the rock. One of the blocks was so thick it was very hard to image with the equipment available, and I wonder if there’s more material in the rock that we haven’t found yet.”
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