COSMOS MAGAZINE

6 newly discovered species that date back to dinosaurs

Sometimes called the “Age of Dinosaurs” or “Age of Reptiles”, The Mesozoic era spanned 252–66 million years ago.

Credit: Rudolf Hima & Badlands Dinosaur Museum.

During this time, dinosaurs grew to be the largest land animals and biggest predators of all time.

But dinosaurs shared the Earth with a plethora of other creatures.

Credit: Virginia Tech.

The Mesozoic saw the emergence of the first mammals, birds and flowering plants.

Here are 5 newly discovered species which lived in the shadows of dinosaurs:

Arrow

 Pterosaurs standing. Credit: Terryl Whitlatch.

Pterosaur

(teh·ruh·saw)

These flying reptiles lived 72–66 million years ago. They are not dinosaurs but evolutionary cousins.

Some pterosaurs were as tall as giraffes when on the ground and had wingspans of more than 10 metres.

Credit: Mark Witton.

New pterosaur fossil discoveries, including a new species found in Jordan, have helped solve the mystery of how such large creatures could fly.

Artist's reconstruction of nothosaurs. Credit: Stavros Kundromichalis.

Nothosaur

(noth·oh·saw)

Another group often mistakenly called “dinosaurs” are the ancient marine reptiles, like  the nothosaur,  which swam  the ancient  oceans while dinosaurs  roamed the land.

Nothosaurs usually grew to about 3 metres in length and had webbed feet.

Credit: Stavros Kundromichalis.

Palaeontologists believe nothosaurs to be ancestors of the more well-known plesiosaurs – a type of long-necked, flippered marine reptile which died out with the non-avian dinosaurs 66 million years ago.

Image: Artist’s impression of a Platypterigius ichthyosaur. Credit: Dmitry Bogdanov, CC BY-SA.

Ichthyosaur

(ik·thee·uh·saw)

Palaeontologists have identified a new species of ichthyosaur from a partial skeleton found on New Zealand’s South Island.

Ichthyosaurs are marine reptiles that evolved about 250 million years ago.

Credit: Dmitry Bogdanov, CC BY-SA.

Though they resemble dolphins, they have a completely different evolutionary lineage. They swam the oceans while dinosaurs ruled on land, dying out about 94 million years ago.

Tadpoles and adults of Notobatrachus degiustoi. Credit: Gabriel Lío.

Giant Jurassic Tadpole

Another familiar group of animals which lived during the time of the dinosaurs are anurans –  the group which includes frogs and toads.

Palaeontologists in Argentina found a 16cm-long tadpole fossil. The creature lived 168 million years ago during the Jurassic period (201–145 million years ago).

Avisaurus darwini

Palaeontologists have discovered the earliest evidence of predatory birds. At 68 million years old, the new species lived alongside T. rex and other dinosaurs of the late Cretaceous period.

Credit: Ville Sinkkonen.

They are the oldest examples of predatory birds in the fossil record and were found at the famous dinosaur fossil site at the Hell Creek Formation in the northern US -  a hotspot for some of the most well-known dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops horridus.

Credit: Alex Clark.

Reconstruction of Feredocodon chowi (right) and Dianoconodon youngi (left). Credit: IVPP.

Jurassic mammaliaforms

The earliest mammals emerged during the Jurassic period. They were small, shrew-like creatures.

Fossils of two strange creatures found in northeastern China show the earliest dental diversification among ancestors of mammals dating back to the Jurassic period. While these aren’t true mammals, they are ancestors of mammals,  including humans. The diversity even among these early Jurassic mammaliforms shows that the evolution of mammals may not have followed a straight-line path.

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