The oldest flying killer ever lived in Africa

The oldest ancient flying reptile ever lived in the Sahara desert in Africa a few dozen million years ago.

Artwork of a flying reptile Alanqa saharicafrom of National Geographic.

National Geographic scientists from the University of Dublin in Ireland found fossils of a reptile flying animal in the Sahara in the territory of Morocco in 2008. Scientists named it Alanqa saharicafrom . Since then they have analyzed fossil bone fragments. The results of the newly published analysis show that fossil bone fragments date to 95 million years and Alanqa saharicafrom is part of an extinct reptile set about 70 million years ago.

Jaw bones and pieces of ancient bones show Alanqa saharicafrom is the oldest ancestor of their long-legged reptile animal Azhdarchids . Nizar Ibrahim, an expert at Dublin University, said they don't have teeth and jaws shaped like bird beaks. Their necks are long and thin, and the wingspan is about 6 m.

Research shows that A. saharicafrom and many other species in the Azhdarchids family do not fly much. Instead they spend a lot of time on the ground to catch lizards, small-sized dinosaurs with a long beak.

Experts believe that many flying ancient reptiles once lived together in the Sahara when the desert was also a delta of a river several tens of millions of years ago. Due to the hunting of different prey, flying ancient reptiles can coexist. For example, a species only eats fish, while another species eats lizards and baby dinosaurs.