Monday, 14 January 2019

Rare Flying Reptile with Mouthful of Fangs Trolled Jurassic Skies



By Stephanie Pappas, Live Science Contributor | January 2, 2019 08:37am ET
As if a spear-like beak and huge leathery wings weren't freaky enough, a newly discovered species of Jurassic pterosaur also had a mouthful of fangs.
Klobiodon rochei was a flying reptile that lived around 166 million years ago in what is now south-central England. Researchers discovered the new species among bone fragments taken from a layer of slate about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the city of Oxford.
"Klobiodon has been known to us for centuries, archived in a museum drawer and seen by dozens or hundreds of scientists, but its significance has been overlooked because it's been confused with another species since the 1800s," paleontologist Michael O'Sullivan of the University of Portsmouth, said in a statement. O'Sullivan and his colleagues discovered that the bones belonged to a new species while combing through more than 200 specimens from the English slate layer in order to fit them all into a family tree. [Photos of Pterosaurs: Flight in the Age of Dinosaurs]

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