A pterodactyl fossil dating back more than 170 million years which has been described as the “discovery of the century” has been unveiled at the National Museum of Scotland.
The prehistoric specimen has been hailed as the best-preserved skeleton of a pterosaur – a huge flying reptile – and the largest ever discovered from the Jurassic period.
The giant winged creature, more popularly known as pterodactyls, is closely related to dinosaurs and had an estimated wingspan of more than 2.5 metres, similar to that of an albatross today.
The fossil, which was found during a National Geographic Society-funded excavation on the Isle of Skye in 2017, will now be added to the museum’s collection, where it was unveiled on Tuesday.
Speaking about the ground-breaking discovery, University of Edinburgh PhD student Natalia Jagielska, who was lead author in a new paper featuring the fossil, described the finding as “a discovery of the century”.
Posing proudly with it for photos, Ms Jagielska said: “The finding has pieced together a huge gap in fossil records for us.
“I am glad that the world is going to see one of the best pterosaurs that has been discovered in centuries.
“Britain hasn’t seen this kind of preservation of pterosaurs in 200 years.
“It’s a discovery of the century, this doesn’t really happen.”
The palaeontology expert said the last time such findings were made was during the days of Mary Anning – a palaeontologist celebrated for her discoveries of Jurassic fossils – in the early 1800s.
Holding a much smaller stuffed toy version of the reptile on her shoulder, Ms Jagielska said the fossil shows that the pterosaur was “much bigger and more diverse than we expected during the Jurassic period.”
“They were also very goofy looking creatures,” she laughed.
“The discovery is also super interesting because this fossil shows there was clearly a lot of evolution going on in that time period.
“And it shows that Scotland is a key piece to discovering that evolutionary variation, the best place in the world, it might be.
“If these delicate bones of the pterosaur can be preserved well, that means other creatures can, and if other creatures can, we might fill the gap in records of the Jurassic period just in Scotland alone.”
The unique specimen will now be added to National Museums Scotland’s collection and studied further.
