Sometime around 166 million years ago , a jumbo flying reptile with farsighted , dagger - similar teeth and chela resembling jousting poles once soared over Britain and their remains have been rediscovered by PhD investigator Michael O’Sullivan .
publish his work inActa Palaeontologica Polonica , O’Sullivan break down more than 200 fossils of flying reptiles pull together over the last 200 old age from Stonesfield Slate , one of the most fossil - copious areas in the World . pass on the extent of fossil recovered from this location , O’Sullivan write that his new described species was probably overlooked at the time of assemblage . But a closer test of the fragments of pterosaurs revealed the flight reptilian was monolithic for its clock time , well - armed , and whose assemblage consisted of at least five taxonomic category representing three menage .
" Klobiodonhas been known to us for centuries , archive in a museum drawer and seen by XII or hundreds of scientist , but its implication has been overlooked because it ’s been confused with another mintage since the 1800s , ” said O’Sullivan in astatement .
Now namedKlobiodon rocheiafter the mirthful ledger creative person Nick Roche , the “ batting cage tooth ” dinosaur is believed to have had a wingspread of about 2 meters ( 6.6 feet ) – monumental for any pterosaur at the clip – and fang measuring up to 25 millimeters ( 1 inch ) long .
" Its big fangs would have ensnarl together to organize a toothy cage , from which little could escape onceKlobiodonhad get a grasp of it , ” said O’Sullivan . Its unequalled dental visibility discern it from other flying reptile , but researchers were only able to compile a profile of its jaw from the low one-half . However , they believe the coastal fly reptilian likely caught fish and calamari with its massive teeth and then swallow them whole sort of like a prehistoric pelican .
Klobiodonwould have lived along with other , more well - know dinosaur such as the first dinosaur ever make , theMegalosaurus . Its “ rediscovery ” tells us more about a time in UK Middle Jurassic when rising ocean levels and warming temperatures turned the region into an area of declamatory , tropical islands .
“ The Stonesfield pterosaurs are seldom pretty or outstanding , but they charm a time in flying reptile organic evolution which is ill represented globally . They have an important role to recreate in not only understand the UK ’s natural account but help us empathize the large global picture as well , ” explained O’Sullivan .
