A 149 million-year-old pterosaur is Britain’s largest flying animal – how scientists proved it from a single finger bone

A flock of Pterodaustro guinazui pterosaurs probably looked like this. Mark Witton, Author provided

Scientists have estimated the size of an extinct flying reptile called a pterosaur, based on fragments of a fossil finger bone discovered in southern England in June 2022. These results reveal it to be the largest British pterosaur yet described, and the second-largest Jurassic pterosaur worldwide.

This 149 million-year-old fossil, known as EC K2576 and nicknamed “Abfab” by the researchers, was found in Abingdon, Oxfordshire – and it is fabulous. They have since attempted to work out what type of pterosaur it was – its taxonomy – and how big the animal was.