An artist’s impression of Balaenognathus maeuseri. Credit: Megan Jacobs, University of Portsmouth
Paleontologists from England, Germany, and Mexico have uncovered an extraordinary new speciesA species is a group of living organisms that share a set of common characteristics and are able to breed and produce fertile offspring. The concept of a species is important in biology as it is used to classify and organize the diversity of life. There are different ways to define a species, but the most widely accepted one is the biological species concept, which defines a species as a group of organisms that can interbreed and produce viable offspring in nature. This definition is widely used in evolutionary biology and ecology to identify and classify living organisms.” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{“attribute”:”data-cmtooltip”, “format”:”html”}]”>species of pterosaur, characterized by an astonishing 400 teeth that resemble the prongs of a nit comb. The remarkable fossil was discovered in a German quarry.
Professor David Martill, lead author of the research, from the University of Portsmouth’s School of the Environment, Geography and Geosciences, said: “The nearly complete skeleton was found in a very finely layered limestone that preserves fossils beautifully.
“The jaws of this pterosaur are really long and lined with small fine, hooked teeth, with tiny spaces between them like a nit comb. The long jaw is curved upwards like an avocet and at the end it flares out like a spoonbill. There are no teeth at the end of its mouth, but there are teeth all the way along both jaws right to the back of its smile.
“And what’s even more remarkable is some of the teeth have a hook on the end, which we’ve never seen before in a pterosaur ever. These small hooks would have been used to catch the tiny shrimp the pterosaur likely fed on – making sure they went down its throat and weren’t squeezed between the teeth.”
The discovery was made accidentally while scientists were excavating a large block of limestone containing crocodile bones.
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A video describing the discovery of the new pterosaur. Credit: University of PortsmouthEstablished in 1992, the University of Portsmouth is a public university in the city of Portsmouth, Hampshire, England. Prior to reaching university status, the school was known as Portsmouth Polytechnic from 1969 until 1992 and can trace its history back to 1870 as the Portsmouth and Gosport School of Science and Art.” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{“attribute”:”data-cmtooltip”, “format”:”html”}]”>University of Portsmouth
Professor Martill said: “This was a rather serendipitous find of a well-preserved skeleton with near perfect articulation, which suggests the carcass must have been at a very early stage of decay with all joints, including their ligaments, still viable. It must have been buried in sediment almost as soon as it had died.”
The pterosaur belongs to a family of pterosaurs called Ctenochasmatidae, which are known from the limestone in Bavaria, Germany, where this one was also found.
Since the first pterosaur was described from there in the 18th century, hundreds of remains of these flying reptiles have been discovered, making the quarries of the Franconian Jura in Bavaria one of the richest pterosaur localities in the world.
The bones of Balaenognathus maeuseri found in the slab of limestone. Credit: PalZ
“This pterosaur had teeth in the upper and lower jaw, which are a mirror image of each other. There is one other pterosaur with more teeth – Pterodaustro from Argentina – but it has stubby teeth in its upper jaw and even longer teeth in its lower jaw, so this new specimen is very different from other ctenochasmatids,” Professor Martill added.
The teeth of the new pterosaur suggest an extraordinary feeding mechanism while it waded through water. It would use its spoon-shaped beak to funnel the water and then its teeth to squeeze out excess liquid, leaving prey trapped in its mouth.
The animal likely dabbled as it waded through shallow lagoons, sucking in tiny water shrimps and copepods and then filtering them out through its teeth just like ducks and flamingos.
Left: UV close-up of the tooth section at the narrowest point of the funnel. Right: Tooth preservation shown in the interpretative drawing of an isolated tooth. Credit: PalZ
It has been named Balaenognathus maeuseri. The generic name roughly translated means whale mouth because of its filtering feeding style. The specific name is after one of the co-authors Matthias Mäuser who sadly passed away during the writing of the paper.
Professor Martill said: “Matthias was a friendly and warm-hearted colleague of a kind that can be scarcely found. In order to preserve his memory, we named the pterosaur in his honor.”
Reference: “A new pterodactyloid pterosaur with a unique filter-feeding apparatus from the Late JurassicThe Jurassic period is a geologic time period and system that spanned 56 million years from the end of the Triassic Period about 201.3 million years ago to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period 145 million years ago. It constitutes the middle period of the Mesozoic Era and is divided into three epochs: Early, Middle, and Late. The name "Jurassic" was given to the period by geologists in the early 19th century based on the rock formations found in the Jura Mountains, which were formed during the Jurassic period.” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{“attribute”:”data-cmtooltip”, “format”:”html”}]”>Jurassic of Germany” by David M. Martill, Eberhard Frey, Helmut Tischlinger, Matthias Mäuser, Héctor E. Rivera-Sylva and Steven U. Vidovic, 21 January 2023, PalZ.
DOI: 10.1007/s12542-022-00644-4
The specimen is currently on display in the Bamberg Natural History Museum.
Source: SciTechDaily
