Researchers have discovered and named the earliest and most primitive pterodactyloid (a group of flying reptiles that would go on to become the largest known flying creatures to have ever existed) and established they flew above the earth some 163 million years ago, longer than previously known.
Working from a fossil discovered in northwest China, the project-led by University of South Florida paleontologist Brian Andres, James Clark of the GW Columbian College of Arts and Sciences and Xu Xing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences-named the new pterosaur species Kryptodrakon progenitor.
The team has determined it as the first pterosaur to bear the characteristics of the Pterodactyloidea, which would become the dominant winged creatures of the prehistoric world.
The fossil is of a small pterodactyloid with a wingspan estimate of about 4.5 feet.
