Nearly Human-Sized Ptesaur From Brazil

The police caught a smuggling operation where thousands of limestone slabs were being carried out of Brazil. Within these slabs, there were 6 extraordinary pieces. These pieces contained an extinct species of a winged reptile known as a pterosaur. While these fragments would have cost thousands of dollars if they were sold to a museum, the police stopped the raid and instead sent these fragments to the University of São Paulo. Victor Baccari and his colleagues from the University of São Paulo identified this species to be Tupandactylus navigans with their only former knowledge from skulls that were found in 2003 by German and English scientists (1).

Fabiana Rodrigues Costa, a palaeontologist at the Federal University of ABC in São Paulo, shares “I’ve seen many exceptional, beautifully preserved pterosaurs in Brazil and abroad, but specimens like this one, which is nearly complete and articulated, with soft tissue preservation, are scarce,” and that “It’s a one-of-a-kind fossil,”.

Figure 1: Tupandactylus navigans

Figure 2: Illustration of Tupandactylus navigans by Victor Beccari (2)

Living in the early Cretaceous, Tupandactylus navigans is a large tapejarid living mostly in the lagoon environment of Brazil’s Crato Formation (see Figure 2). Tapejarids are known for their toothless jaws and cranial crests that are usually huge (3). Some are inferred to have had a herbivorous diet (4). It is discovered that T. navigans have a short but deep jaw which it used while eating fruits and flowering plants and possibly small animals, which is why it is classified in the Tapejaridae family (5). It is a mediocre animal for the period that it lived in, with a wingspan of about 2.7 meters. From the skeletal arrangements and traces of tissue fragments or marks that were found (see Figure 4), illustrations visible in Figure 1 and Figure 2 were put together. Their findings show that the T. Navigans has a long neck, long legs, and comparatively short wings, which is an indication that it is better at walking than flying.

Figure 3: Araripe Basin, in northeast Brazil, a limestone layer called the Crato Formation. (6)

Since 2017, the ground-breaking discovery of the fossil has led to many new discussions, and the fossil has been located in São Paulo’s Geosciences Museum.

Figure 4: Skeletal fragments of Tupandactylus navigans (7)

Works Cited

1. “A Plundered Pterosaur Reveals The Extinct Flyer’S Extreme Headgear”. Nature.Com, 2021, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02283-2.
2. Runwal, Priyanka. “Stunning Fossil Seized in Police Raid Reveals Prehistoric Flying Reptile’s Secrets.” Science, National Geographic, 27 Aug. 2021, www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/stunning-fossil-seized-in-police-raid-reveals-prehistoric-flying-reptiles-secrets.
3. Kellner AWA, Campos D de A. Short note on the ingroup relationships of the Tapejaridae (Pterosauria, Pterodactyloidea). Boletim do Museu Nacional. 2007;75: 16.
4. Pêgas RV, Costa FR, Kellner AWA. Reconstruction of the adductor chamber and predicted bite force in pterodactyloids (Pterosauria). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 2021 [cited 2 May 2021].
5. Garland, Nick. “Tupandactylus.” Pteros, www.pteros.com/pterosaurs/tupandactylus.html.
6. “Oldest Mushroom Fossil FROM Dinosaur-Era Discovered in Brazil.” 404, news.cgtn.com/news/3d45444e7a49444e/share_p.html.
7. “Osteology of an Exceptionally Well-Preserved Tapejarid Skeleton from Brazil: Revealing the Anatomy of a Curious PTERODACTYLOID CLADE.” PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254789.g001.