News inputs by Gurmehar Kaur
Queensland, Aug 14: Palaeontologists from the University of Queensland in Australia have studied the lower jaw bone of a dragon – like reptile. They found that it was a pterosaur (an extinct flying reptile). It was one of the largest flying reptiles of Australia. It had a skull of length 3 feet, long neck, spear-like mouth with 40 razor sharp teeth and a wingspan of 23 feet. It was named Thapunngaka shawii, (genus name Thapunngaka in indigenous Wanamara language means spear and mouth and the species name shawii in honour of Len Shaw, the person who found it). It lived during the Cretaceous period (about 145.5 million to 65.5 million years ago). The new species belong to a group of pterosaurs known as anhanguerians, which lived in all the continents during the latter part of the Age of Dinosaurs. They are perfectly adapted to flight with thin bones. The striking feature of this new species was the huge size of the bony crest on its lower jaw.