Fossils of 'sea phantom' flying reptile unearthed in Australia

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Long ago, in the sky above the shallow Eromanga Sea, which originally encompassed what is now dry inland Australia, flew a ferocious pterosaur – flying reptile – with a bony crest at the apex of its upper and lower jaws and a mouthful of spike-shaped teeth perfect for snaring fish and other aquatic food.

Scientists have discovered remains of this species in the Australian state of Queensland, where it lived alongside dinosaurs and other marine reptiles during the Cretaceous Period. Haliskia peterseni's remains are the most complete of any pterosaur ever discovered in Australia. It had a wingspan of 15 feet (4.6 meters) and lived about 100 million years ago, making Haliskia somewhat bigger and older (by approximately 5 million years) than the closely related Australian pterosaur Ferrodraco, whose discovery was revealed in 2019. Haliskia means «sea phantom» and this monster may have been a terrifying sight flying above the waters.

«The Eromanga Sea was a vast inland sea that covered most of Australia when this pterosaur lived, but it has since perished. The ghost of both of these can be seen in the fossils discovered in the region», - said Adele Pentland, a PhD student in paleontology at Curtin University in Australia and main author of the research published this week in the journal Scientific Reports. Pterosaurs' delicate skeletons are unsuitable for fossilization. For Haliskia, 22% of the skeleton was discovered, including full lower jaws, the tip of the upper jaw, throat bones, 43 teeth, vertebrae, ribs, bones from both wings, and a portion of one leg. «We inferred the presence of a muscular tongue based on the relative length of the throat bones, compared to the length of the lower jaw», - Pentland said. «In many other pterosaurs, the neck bones are 30% or 60% the length of the lower jaw, while in Haliskia, the throat bones are 70% the length of the lower jaw. This meant that Haliskia may have had an edge in hunting fish and squid-like cephalopods, since it could catch live prey in its teeth», - Pentland said.

Pentland was «astounded» that the Haliskia specimen had neck bones. «These are as thin as a piece of spaghetti, and one is complete from end to end», - Pentland said. Ferrodraco's remains are less complete than Haliskia's. Both are anhanguerians, a pterosaur group identified from bones discovered in China, the United States, Brazil, England, Spain, and Morocco. Pentland said that the last three identified Australian pterosaurs are only known from fragmentary jaw bones. After death, the Haliskia individual's remains was buried under silt at the bottom of the Eromanga Sea, allowing for fossilization. The creature's name also pays tribute to Kevin Petersen, an avocado farmer turned Kronosaurus Korner museum curator who found its bones in 2021.

Pterosaurs, the first of three vertebrate families to accomplish powered flight, appeared around 230 million years ago. Birds first emerged around 150 million years ago, and bats about 50 million years ago. Apart from their bird descendants, the pterosaurs were wiped off in the same global extinction event that devastated the dinosaurs 66 million years ago, as a result of an asteroid impact. «Pterosaurs lived in a variety of ecological niches, with tiny pterosaurs eating on insects, piscivores dining on fish, and scavengers. The tiniest pterosaurs had wingspans of roughly 25 cm (10 inches), but the greatest pterosaurs had wingspans comparable to small fighter aircraft and were the largest creatures to have flown through the sky», - Pentland said. Haliskia helps us comprehend life in Australia during the Mesozoic Era, when dinosaurs roamed the region. «This discovery is significant as it was presumed for many years that Australia had very few fossils from the age of dinosaurs» - Pentland said.

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