Dinosaur fossil found in China by Zuzana Krskova

Researches led by Xiaolin Wang of the Chinese Academy of Science found a small pterodactyl. It's reported in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "We have this really amazing creature, sparrow sized, which lived essentially in the trees, showing us a very new, very interesting side of the evolutionary history of those animals.' Said Alexander W. A. Kellner of the National Museum of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Pterodactyls are usually known for people from a giant examples of those flying reptiles. They have also been mostly uncovered in coastal areas. This new fossil- Dubbed Nemicolopterus crypticus ( Hidden flying dweller)- was found in the western part of China's Liaoning province, a region forested about 120 million years ago. This pterosaurs lived most of the time in trees. It has a curved toes, and it was so small, that researchers thought, it was a baby, when they first uncovered it. "Because they were flying animals, their fossils are extremely rare. So, discoveries such as this are fundamental to understand the evolution of these winged vertebrates," Kellner said. The legs of this pterodactyl had attachments for muscles indicating that it has been able to grasp limbs. Also unlike most pterodactyls, it lacked teeth. Speculators supposed, that it might have eaten insects. There have been also found smaller specimens, but clearly younger than this animal. "It is interesting to see some clear arboreal adaptations in this species," said Matthew Carrano, a paleontologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and added, "It confirms a suspicion we had, that pterosaurs were more diverse in their habitats than we knew from the record." Even if this animal would double its size by growing, it would be still the smallest of its particular group.

by Zuzana Krskova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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