Does the discovery of the oldest flying reptile in North America deepen your interest in prehistoric life?
209-Million-Year-Old Pterosaur Fossil Rewrites North American Prehistory
Scientists have unearthed a groundbreaking fossil of *Eotephradactylus mcintireae*, a 209-million-year-old pterosaur in Arizona’s Petrified Forest, marking the earliest known flying reptile discovery in North America. This species lived alongside early turtles and armored reptiles and may have dined on fish, as suggested by tooth wear patterns and nearby fish fossils. Identified from a rare jawbone among more than 1,200 collected fossils, this seagull-sized reptile sheds light on early vertebrate flight and ecological diversity just before the end-Triassic extinction. Published in *PNAS* and led by the Smithsonian, this find is being hailed as a key moment in vertebrate evolutionary research.
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- Yes, it's fascinating
- No, not really
- A little, but not deeply
- I didn’t know about it until now