Rare Pterosaur Fossil Bears a Crocodile Bite from 76 Million Years Ago

January 27, 2025 journo

– credit: University of Reading, released.

76 million years ago, a young pterosaur dropped down from the skies to the water’s edge. Perhaps looking for a snack in the form of a prehistoric fish, the juvenile almost ended up becoming a meal itself.

Or it may actually have, we’ll never know for certain, but a punctured vertebrate fossil uncovered in Canada shows that ancient crocodilians preyed, or at least scavenged, on pterosaurs; a remarkable discovery.

– credit: Brown et al, University of Reading

Excavated in Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, during a 2023 study trip led by Dr. Brian Pickles from the University of Reading, the single cervical vertebrate bore a smooth, conical puncture at one end.

CT scans and analysis of the bite mark suggest it was a crocodile, but the researchers were not able to deduce whether the croc was feeding on a carcass as modern crocs commonly do, or was ambushing the flying reptile after it descended.

Several species of ancient crocodiles inhabited the region covered by Dinosaur Provincial Park in the Late Cretaceous period when the pterosaur, called Cyrodrakon boreas, existed there.

“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 from the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology and lead author of the paper.

ALSO CHECK OUT: Near-Complete Pterosaur Skeleton Obtained in Police Raid Reveals Stunning Details About the Species

C. boreas would have been one of the largest flying animals ever. An adult stood tall as a giraffe, with a wingspan as long as a small bus. But the juvenile that Pickles and his study group found probably had a wingspan of just over 6 feet, making it well within the prey size for ancient crocs.

MORE FASCINATING FOSSILS: A Burrowing Dinosaur? More Evidence from Utah Suggests that Some Dinos Were Happier Underground

In the study, the authors detail how despite being one of the most widely dispersed clades of prehistoric reptiles, pterosaurs rarely feature in well-documented paleoecologies. Their hollow bones and habitat make it difficult to ascertain their place in the food web and the relations they had with the surrounding species.

The crocodile puncture mark is a violent, and suddenly crystal clear insight into at least one of these relations: pterosaurs, if they were small enough, or already dead, were definitely on the menu.

SHARE This Fascinating Discover From The Age Of The Dinosaurs…