The Tiniest Pterosaur

A beautifully preserved fossil of a tiny pterosaur has been discovered in China. And he’s just plain adorable!

The new fossil, which was discovered in 2004 in western Liaoning province, China, is about 120 million years old.

The specimen is an almost complete, articulated skeleton with a wingspan of just 25 centimetres, making it about the size of a swallow, says its discoverer, palaeontologist Xiaolin Wang of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.

The little dinosaur had curved toe bones, suggesting that it perched in trees. It appears to be a primitive relative of the giant pterodactyls we are familiar with. Scientists have named the species Nemicoloperus crypticus. Link -via Digg

(image credit: Chuang Zhao)