Fossil intercepted by Brazil police turns out to be amazing flying reptile

In 2013, thousands of limestone slabs were intercepted as they were planned to be smuggled out of Brazil. The police raid exposed the slabs to be fossils taken from a quarry in Araripe Basin which held, among others, the preserved remains of a reptile from millions of years ago.

The fossil, spread out and preserved in six slabs, was the most complete fossil of a species of pterosaur ever found, according to the New York Times, and was dated as far back as 110 million years ago.

The fossil and the limestone slabs were being smuggled by traders who had intended to sell their loot to museums and private collectors overseas. It would have been a very profitable operation for the criminals, had the Brazilian police not stopped it in time.

The police raids that were part of an investigation codenamed Operation Munich stopped the illegal export, National Geographic writes, and sent nearly 3,000 of the seized specimens to the University of Sao Paulo.

The reptile that is the cause for much celebration is a winged one, taller than a metre “with a jaw similar to a bird’s beak and larger-than-life headgear,” according to National Geographic.

Scientists are calling it “a remarkably well-preserved, almost complete and articulated new specimen of Tupandactylus navigans [from] the Early Cretaceous Crato Formation of Brazil. The new specimen comprises an almost complete skeleton, preserving both the skull and post-cranium, associated with remarkable preservation of soft tissues, which makes it the most complete tapejarid known thus far,” writing in the journal Plos One.

They say the specimen is of an adult of the species, and that it is the first time that postcranial remains of Tupandactylus navigans are described, thanks to CT [computed tomography] scanning: “Apart from presenting the first postcranial material unambiguously assigned to Tupandactylus, the new specimen is indeed the best-preserved tapejarid [a family of pterodactyloid pterosaurs from the Cretaceous period] skeleton known so far, shedding new light on the anatomy of this pterodactyloid clade.”

The New York Times speculates as to what the reptile must have looked like: “With a giant, mohawk-style crest, a birdlike beak and a body covered in something resembling but not quite fur, the pterosaur probably stuck out even among the other exotic creatures of the early Cretaceous Period. Its sprawling wingspan indicated that it almost certainly flew, but probably only for short distances because of its long neck and large crest.”

The researchers believe the pterosaur’s crest may have been both a blessing and a curse, used to attract mates but making them more vulnerable to predators.

They say the bones are extremely fragile, more than birds’ are, and the fossils are a rare find.

According to Science Daily, the description of the pterosaur suggests that “this species had a terrestrial foraging lifestyle, due to its long neck and the proportions of its limbs, as well as its large head crest that could negatively influence long-distance flight. However, the specimen possesses all the necessary adaptation for powered flight, such as the presence of a notarium and a developed muscle anchoring region in the arm bones.”

Science Daily also notes that “Precisely how all these factors contributed to the flight performance and lifestyle of these animals will be a subject of future research, among the many other questions that can be answered through study of this exceptional fossil.”

According  to National Geographic, Brazil’s Araripe Basin, which was “once covered in saline lagoons but is now arid and scrubby, yields many exceptionally preserved fossils entombed in layers of limestone.”

“You open the stone like you’re opening a book, and inside those pages you’ll find fossils,” says palaeontologist and study co-author Felipe Lima Pinheiro at the Federal University of Pampa in São Gabriel, Brazil.

According to the New York Times, “a lake with fluctuating salinity that was created when Africa and Brazil separated was ideal for fossil preservation.”

“We think at the bottom of the lake there was no oxygen, so no animals or bacteria could decay the animal,” Victor Beccari, a graduate student and the lead author of the study tells the NYT. “If it managed to get to this part of the lake it would be safe from decomposing.”

The Tupandactylus navigans has been on display at Sao Paulo’s Geosciences Museum for scientists to examine and the public to observe since 2017, thanks to the police raid that saved it from being exported overseas.