Soaring overhead in the Cretaceous skies with taut leathery wings longer than a family car, they would have made an unnerving sight. Now scientists, analysing a fossil that had lain for years after its discovery in a German museum, have for the first time glimpsed one of the most imposing of the prehistoric flyers.
Lacusovagus magnificens, the magnificent lake wanderer, is the largest prehistoric flying reptile without teeth ever to have been found. The name comes from its preservation in lake sediments of the Araripe basin in north-east Brazil, a site well known for its excellently preserved fossils.
"Some of the previous examples we have from this family in China are just 60cm long – as big as the skull of the new species," said Mark Witton a postgraduate student in the school of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Portsmouth, "Put simply, it dwarfs any chaoyangopterid we've seen before by miles." The chaoyangopterids are a family of toothless pterosaurs and the fossil is the first of the family to be found in Brazil.
"The discovery of something like this in Brazil – so far away from its closest relatives in China – demonstrates how little we actually know about the distribution and evolutionary history of this fascinating group of creatures," Witton said.
Interpreting the fossil was difficult because of its unusual preservation. "Usually fossils like this are found lying on their sides but this one was lying on the roof of its mouth and had been rather squashed, which made even figuring out whether it had teeth difficult," said Witton. From the skull he was able to extrapolate that the beast would have had a wingspan of around five metres and stood more than a metre tall at the shoulder. It also had a wide mouth suggesting that it was able to tackle large prey. "The remains are very fragmentary, however, so we need more specimens before we can draw any conclusions," Witton said.
Although large, Lacusovagus was much smaller than some of the giant toothed flying reptiles. Quetzalcoatlus, named after the Aztec winged serpent god, was the size of a spitfire with a wingspan of 11 to 12 metres. It had a massively elongated fourth digit on its "hands" and fibres in the wing membrane for added support. Another species that may have been even bigger is Hatzegopteryx thambema, which is known from a single specimen discovered in Romania. Its bone structure resembles expanded polystyrene – presumably for extra lightness to allow flight.
The smallest pterosaur ever discovered is Nemicolopterus crypticus, meaning "hidden flying forest dweller". Discovered in north-east China it was the size of a blackbird with a wingspan of just 25cm.