Ancient cemetery of flying reptiles unearthed in Chile's Atacama desert

[Judi Lynn]

Scientists say remains belong to pterosaurs, who lived alongside dinosaurs more than 100m years ago

Reuters in Santiago
Wed 6 Apr 2022 11.31 EDT

Scientists in Chile have unearthed a rare cemetery with well-preserved bones of ancient flying reptiles that roamed the Atacama desert more than 100m years ago.

The remains belong to pterosaurs, scientists determined, flying creatures that lived alongside dinosaurs and had a long wingspan and fed by filtering water through long, thin teeth, similar to flamingos.

The group of scientists, led by Jhonatan Alarcón, an investigator at the University of Chile, have been searching for pterosaurs for years, but this discovery surpassed their hopes.

“This has global relevance because these types of findings are relatively rare,” Alarcón said. “Almost everywhere in the world, the pterosaur remains that are found are isolated.”

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/06/chile-atacama-desert-flying-reptiles-pterosaurs

[mopinko]

1. a cemetery? ummmmm

c'mon guardian. i dont expect much from your prose, but...

[eppur_se_muova]

2. "Bone bed" is the term used by paleontologists for dense deposits of vertebrates.

Interesting to learn why this area seems exclusive to pterosaurs. Perhaps it was at high altitude even then ? Most such sites erode away, so fossils of montaine organisms are relatively rare.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Longer, more complete version of same article from a different publication:

Scientists have discovered an ancient cemetery of flying reptiles roaming the Atacama desert of Chile 100 million years ago



. . .

The remains were discovered in an area that would have been a tidal estuary of the Quebrada Monardes Formation in the Lower Cretaceous, 100 million years ago. The new locality, which is named “Cerro Tormento”, is in Cerros Bravos in the northeast Atacama region, Northern Chile.

. . .

‘In addition, the presence of bones belonging to more than one individual preserved in Cerro Tormento suggest that pterosaur colonies were present at the southwestern margin of Gondwana during the Early Cretaceous.’

Gondwana was an ancient supercontinent that broke up about 180 million years ago, eventually splitting into Africa, South America, Australia and Antarctica.

It was reported that Pterosaurs have diversified into dozens of species. Some were the size of an F-16 fighter plane, while others were the size of a sparrow.

More:
https://arkeonews.net/scientists-have-discovered-an-ancient-cemetery-of-flying-reptiles-roaming-the-atacama-desert-of-chile-100-million-years-ago/