Tiny dinosaur fossil is found in China

Feb 12, Yahoo

WASHINGTON - As pterodactyls go it was small, toothless and had unexpectedly curved toes — yet scientists are welcoming their new find as another piece in the puzzle of ancient life.

"We have this really amazing creature, sparrow sized, which lived essentially in the trees, showing us a very new, very interesting side of the evolutionary history of those animals," said Alexander W. A. Kellner of the National Museum of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

"We would never have thought of it," Kellner said in a telephone interview.

The find, by researchers led by Xiaolin Wang of the Chinese Academy of Science, is reported in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Pterodactyls are best known from giant examples of the ancient flying reptiles, and most specimens have been uncovered in coastal areas.

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photo: This undated handout artist rendering provided by the PNAS/National Academy of Sciences shows a life reconstruction of Nemicolopterus crypticus, a small derived flying reptile that lived in the gingko forests that existed some 120 million years ago in present China. As pterodactyls go it was small, toothless and had unexpectedly curved toes — yet scientists are welcoming their new find as another piece in the puzzle of ancient life. (AP Photo/PNAS/National Academy of Sciences, Michael Skrepnickaption) Image courtesy of PNAS/National Academy of Sciences