Big monsters with an airplane dominate the ancient sky

Scientists found a fossil-eating fossil in Mongolia the size of a plane that dominated the sky 70 million years ago.

Scientists at Tokyo University, Japan discovered fossils of an ancient predator flying in the Gobi desert, Mongolia. This fossil belongs to the pterosaur (pterosaur) , a group of flying reptiles that lived around the same time as dinosaurs about 70 million years ago, according to Science Alert. The results are published in the October 4 issue of Vertebrate Paleontology.

The flying lizard is similar in size to a small plane.(Photo: iStock).

Flying lizards are the first vertebrates to develop flight capabilities, and are the largest flying animals that have ever appeared on Earth. Although scientists have not been able to identify the newly excavated new lizard species in Mongolia, the size of the neck bone fragments suggests it has a very large body.

"I immediately realized that the fossil was a flying lizard and I was amazed by its enormous size. Immediately we returned to the archaeological site and discovered the rest of the specimen. " , Takanobu Tsuihiji, member of the research team, said.

While it is difficult to determine the size of an extinct flying lizard only from the remains of fossil bones, the team thinks its footprint is comparable to the two largest flying lizards. We know it is Quetzalcoatlus and Hatzegopteryx . They have wingspan of about 11m, equivalent to a small plane.

"This is a really big vertebra. It certainly belongs to one of the largest flying lizards, unlike any animal that lives in Asia ever," Mark Witton, paleontologist. Study at the University of Portsmouth, England, said.

The team said they needed more fossils to unravel the mystery of the newly discovered flying lizard. They are quite popular aerial predators in the late Cretaceous period.