Scientists have identified a new species of pterosaur from a 100-million-year-old fossil in Australia, which appears to have had a massive tongue to push prey down its throat
A 100-million-year-old fossil pterosaur found in Australia may have had the largest and most muscular tongue of all its relatives.
The fossil was found in 2021 by Kevin Petersen, the curator at Kronosaurus Korner, a museum near the outback town of Richmond in Queensland.that inhabited Earth at the same time as dinosaurs – you might find one bone, says Petersen. “But as I started to dig around, more and more bone started to show and I realised I needed to go very carefully,” he says.Nearly a quarter of the skeleton has now been recovered, making it the most complete pterosaur ever found by scientists in Australia.
The entire lower jaw was preserved, along with part of the upper jaw, vertebrae, ribs, and leg and feet bones. But most surprising was the preservation of the extremely delicate throat bones, just a few millimetres in diameter, which reminded Petersen of spaghetti.at Curtin University in Perth realised the fossil belonged to an entirely new genus and species in the Anhanguera family of pterosaurs, which are found globally.
The team thinks the tongue was used to catch and hold prey, probably slippery animals such as squid and fish. Once prey was grabbed by its jaws,Like a pelican, it probably swallowed its prey whole, she says. The tongue was also probably used to push the meal down into its throat. “It was really breathtaking to see the remains of this fossil animal and to imagine the abundance of life that must have been there at that time and how very different it would have been to what we see in outback Queensland today,” says Pentland.
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