The jaw from an ancient flying reptile called A. halli would have contained 54 pointy teeth when the beast was alive some 95 million years ago. Credit: Southern Methodist University.
A new species of pterosaur has been identified, Aetodactylus halli, from a jaw bone found in north Texas by Lance Hall, a hobbyist and member of the Dallas Paleontological Society. This species is unusual in that it had teeth.
Based on the jaw bone, this particular A. halli had a wingspan of about nine feet. Specimens of other pterosaurs found in Texas had wingspans of 36 to 39 feet.
The F-84, the first fighter jet that could carry a tactical atomic weapon, had a wingspan of 36 feet 5 inches. The wingtips of a large pterosaur sitting on my roof would touch the ground on either side of my house.
It’s hard to imagine a bird that big.
But what amazed me the most was that 95 million years ago the east and west coasts of the United States were divided by the Cretaceous Seaway.
Who knew?
