Wednesday 14 March 2012

Chew before swallowing

An amazing fossil find from Eichstätt, a town in southern Germany, now described by Eberhard Frey and Helmut Tischlinger of the State Museum of Natural History Karlsruhe.

journal.pone.0031945.g001.jpg

150 million years ago, a winged pterosaur called Rhamphorhynchus swooped low over sea to ctach a fish near the surface of a Jurassic ocean. But then a much larger fish - Aspidorhynchus - grabbed the pterosaur and pulled it under the waves. A fish within a pterosaur within a fish. Amazing.

Source: Frey, E. and Tischlinger, H. (2012) The Late Jurassic Pterosaur Rhamphorhynchus, a Frequent Victim of the Ganoid Fish Aspidorhynchus? PLoS ONE 7(3): e31945. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0031945

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