The fossil found more than a century ago has revealed interesting things regarding the evolution of flying reptiles
The fossil has been dated to the Triassic period, just the moment when the dinosaurs appear
According to an article published on the BBC by Victoria Gill, The evolutionary secrets of a 230-million-year-old reptile fossil have been revealedfollowing a century of being “locked inside a block of stone”. The researchers used powerful X-ray scanners to examine the fossil, found a century ago in Scotland. Their study produced the first complete reconstruction of the skeleton of the Scleromochlus .
This small scampering Triassic reptile is, according to scientists, the ancestor of the great winged pterodactyl. “We just didn’t understand how much we were missing until we did these scans,” said lead researcher Dr Davide Foffa of the National Museums Scotland.
The Scleromochlus It is part of a collection known as the Elgin Reptiles, a set of fossils from the Triassic period unearthed in the 1900s at Lossiemouth, near Elgin, Moray. They date from a time when Scotland was largely a desert within the supercontinent Pangea.
