At the Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta, Canada, the fossilized neck bone of a flying reptile that lived around 76 million years ago was unearthed, and it shows signs of being bitten by a crocodile-like creature.
The young pterosaur vertebra bears a circular puncture mark from a crocodilian tooth that is four millimeters wide.
Researchers from the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology in Canada, the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, and the University of New England in Australia made the discovery during an international field course that occurred in July 2023.
The bite mark is rare evidence that offers insight into the dynamics of predators and prey in the region during the Cretaceous period.
“Pterosaur bones are very delicate—so finding fossils where another animal has clearly taken a bite is exceptionally uncommon. This specimen being a juvenile makes it even more rare,” said Dr. Caleb Brown, the lead author of the study from the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology.
The vertebra belongs to a juvenile Azhdarchid pterosaur (Cryodrakon boreas). It had an estimated wingspan of 6.5 feet.
Fully grown members of this species would have reached a similar height to a giraffe with a wingspan of about 32 feet.
The research team used micro-CT scans and comparisons with other pterosaur bones to make sure the bite mark was not the result of damage from fossilization or excavation. They confirmed that it was an actual bite from a crocodile-like creature.
“Bite traces help to document species interactions from this period. We can’t say if the pterosaur was alive or dead when it was bitten, but the specimen shows that crocodilians occasionally preyed on, or scavenged, juvenile pterosaurs in prehistoric Alberta over 70 million years ago,” said Dr. Brian Pickles, a co-author of the study from the University of Reading.
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The new bone is also the first evidence of ancient crocodilians feeding on giant prehistoric flying reptiles in North America. Other examples of Azhdarchid bones with possible crocodilian bites have been discovered in Romania before.
Pterosaurs soared through the skies during the age of the dinosaurs. They were some of the largest flying reptiles to ever grace the Earth and existed during most of the Mesozoic era. Pterosaurs are also the earliest known vertebrates to have evolved powered flight.
So far, over 150 species of pterosaur have been found all over the world, and more are being uncovered through the years. In 2021, an amateur paleontologist in Australia unearthed several fossilized bones in western Queensland.
Since then, they have been identified as a new species of pterosaur called Haliskia peterseni. The predator was alive when much of central and western Queensland was covered by a vast sea.
The study was published in the Journal of Paleontology.
