United Kingdom (Commonwealth Union)_ According to a new study published earlier this month, a flying reptile that lived 200 million years ago was discovered by Michael Cawthorne, a student in the United Kingdom. The discovery took place while the student was studying reptile fossils from limestone quarries in the region surrounding the city of Bristol. Fossils of the ancient reptile sheds new light on unusual animals from prehistoric ecosystems in what is now the United Kingdom.
The prehistoric flying reptile belongs to the genus Draco, that consists of agamid lizards called gliding lizards, flying dragons, or flying lizards. The extinct reptile discovered in the area where Bristol now sits belong to a group known as “kuehneosaurs.”
The family Kuehneosauridae consists of extinct small, gliding reptiles that lived during the Triassic period of North America and Europe.
At present, the new study (mentioned earlier) is led by researchers from the University of Bristol, who confirmed the existence of these flying reptiles during the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic periods, predominantly in the area around Bristol and South Wales. The discovery of the prehistoric animal also shows the different environment region in the United Kingdom has, 200 million years ago.
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The University of Bristol research paper was published in the journal Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association on January 20. It is led by Michael Cawthorne, who is one of the authors and the same person who found the prehistoric flying reptile in the Bristol area. Being a masters student at the United Kingdom university, Cawthorne is under the School of Earth Sciences, along with other authors.
Based on the new paper, the area surrounding Bristol and South Wales was an archipelago of islands occupied by relatively small-sized tetrapods. The largest of these now-vanished islands was Mendip Island, which now forms the Mendip Hills, a site rich in fossils. The research team acknowledged however, that these sites have not been described in detail before.
What are Kuehneosaurs?
The UK student identified the flying reptile creature through fossils from the ancient island and his team investigated fossils from these sites collected during the mid-20th century. During a press release, Cawthorne said he studied fossils made in the 1940s and 1950s when quarries in the region were still active. Still, Cawthorne was able to discover the fossils of the 200-million-year-old gliding reptile.
The prehistoric animal involved in the study is called, Kuehneosaurus latus, a species that is more related to crocodilians and dinosaurs than lizards. .Yet, it is somehow similar to the Draco lizard species in Southeast Asia. Based on evidence, kuehneosaurs most likely climbed trees and roamed above ground to hunt for their insect prey. This hunting behavior similar to that of predatory birds in modern times.
These prehistoric animals are distinguished from other diapsids by their ‘wings’ formed by elongated ribs which allowed the animal to glide and parachute similar to living gliding lizards. Judging from their pin-like teeth, they were most likely insectivorous,. They are often, but not always, placed in the group Lepidosauromorpha, although other studies have recovered them in other positions within Sauria, including Archosauromorpha.
In spite of the extinction of kuehneosaurs, surviving non-avian dinosaurs and its avian descendants from the mass extinction sixty six million years ago were still able to evolve with some maintaining the ability of flight and gliding, as the case for some bird species of today.
