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A Fossil Hunter's Find In the early 1800s, one of the most avid fossil hunters in England was a carpenter's daughter named Mary Anning. She had grown up collecting fossils by her seaside home. (At age 13, she discovered one of the first ichthyosaurs—giant swimming reptiles.) Mary supported her family by finding and selling fossils. Many scientists visited her shop to buy her fossils and learn about her latest finds. In 1828, she made one of her biggest discoveries: a fossil of the first English pterosaur, known today as Dimorphodon macronyx. Headlines praised Mary and her "flying dragon."
Pronunciation: dye-MORF-o-don ma-KRON-ix
Lived: around 200 million years ago
Fossil Found: on a coast in southern England
Wingspan: up to 4.5 feet (1.4 m)
Diet: insects, fish, and other small vertebrates
Cool Fact: Large holes in the bulky skull kept the head light for flying.
Cool Fact: The floor of the sea where Dimorphodon fossilized was high in iron, so its fossils are colored iron-gray.
The name Dimorphodon macronyx describes:
the location it was discovered
its teeth and claws
the shape of its wings
Correct!
Dimorphodon, or "two-formed tooth" in Greek, comes from its two types of teeth: long, curved fangs at the front of its jaws and short pointed teeth in the back. Macronyx, or "long claw," describes the claws on its wings.
Pterosaurs left trackways on the ground that help scientists learn how these animals landed, stood, and walked. They show that pterosaurs:
hopped on two legs
walked on two legs
walked on four limbs
Correct!
Fossil tracks show that pterosaurs were quadrupedal. That means they walked on all four limbs—their two wings and two hind legs. The distance between tracks shows the length of an animal's stride—or whether it was slowing down or speeding up.
What did Dimorphodon do with its large wings when it walked?
it held its wings out to the side
it tucked up its wings like a folded umbrella
it closed its wings back over its tail
Correct!
Like other pterosaurs, its wings could fold like an umbrella. Pterosaurs tucked up their outerwings when they walked. This kept the wings protected and out of the way!
Dimorphodon used its long tail to attack predators.
Fact
OR
Fiction
?
Fiction
Long tails kept it steady when flying, like a kite's tail. The flap on the end may've worked like a boat's rudder, keeping it straight, or like a plane's wing flap, keeping it at the right height.
“
When pterosaurs were first found, people didn't know what to make of them. Some people thought they were aquatic animals that used their forelimbs to propel themselves through water!
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Mark Norell, paleontologist