In 2021, we hear about a pterosaur with a mouth full of large, sharp teeth. Scientists have discovered the opposite extreme pterosaur, which used more than 400 tiny hooked teeth to catch its prey.
The remarkably well-preserved, near-complete fossilized skeleton of this tiny creature was first unearthed in a limestone quarry in Bavaria and most recently analyzed by a team of paleontologists from the UK, Germany and Mexico.
the animal was a member of Ctenochasmataceae A member of pterosaurs, named Balaenognathus maeuseriThis nickname loosely translates to “whale mouth”. Also from Germany, he was a collaborator at the Naturkunde Museum Bamberg (Natural History Museum Bamberg), who died in the course of his work, in honor of Matthias Mäuser.
University of Portsmouth
“This pterosaur’s jaws are very long, with rows of narrow, hooked teeth with small egg-like gaps between them. [louse] Professor David Martil, Chief Scientist at the University of Portsmouth, said: There are no teeth at the edges of the mouth, but there are teeth along the jaws all the way to the back of the smile. “
The reptile is thought to have fed while wading through shallow lagoons, scooping with a spoon at the edge of its mouth and pushing water out through narrow gaps between its meshing teeth. In this way, it filters and swallows small shrimp and other prey.
Today’s baleen whales feed similarly to ducks and flamingos. The hooks at the end of the pterosaur’s teeth may have helped hook the shrimp to prevent it from escaping between its teeth. This is the first time such a hook has been seen in a pterosaur.
“This pterosaur has teeth in its upper and lower jaws that are mirror images of each other,” Martil says. “There is another pterosaur with more teeth. Pterodaustro Although native to Argentina, it has stubby teeth in the upper jaw and even longer teeth in the lower jaw, making this new specimen very different from other Ctenochasmatidae. “
A paper on this study was recently published in the journal paleontology journal.
Source: University of Portsmouth
