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Victoria Bela

Scientists in China and Brazil have found the first evidence of a plant-eating pterosaur, the ancient flying reptiles that coexisted with dinosaurs.
The rare find sheds light on the mysterious diets of the creatures that ruled the skies before birds and renews a contentious debate among palaeontologists.
“We report the first evidence of stomach contents of a pterodactyloid pterosaur,” the team said in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Science Bulletin on July 1.
The fossil of the Sinopterus atavismus – a species of pterosaur – was found in northeastern China. Its stomach was found to contain phytoliths, a rigid, microscopic mineral deposit that forms in some plants, as well as small quartz crystals possibly swallowed to aid digestion, the team said.
Quartz is commonly present in gastroliths – or mineralised “stomach stones” that many living animals, including birds and lizards, keep in their gizzards or stomachs to help grind up tough foods like plants.
“The first occurrence of phytoliths, associated with gastroliths, in the stomach contents confirms the herbivory of Sinopterus. It is the first time that such structures have been discovered in pterosaurs.”
Pterosaurs are an extinct group of flying reptiles that lived from around 240 million years ago in the Late Triassic period to the end of the Cretaceous period around 66 million years ago.
Often mistaken for dinosaurs, pterosaurs like the pterodactyl and the pteranodon – which were featured in the Jurassic Park film franchise – were the earliest vertebrates to evolve powered flight.

“Among the several questions surrounding these flying reptiles is their dietary habits, which remain poorly understood,” said the team, led by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP).
There have been many hypotheses about what pterosaurs ate, including that they primarily fed on insects, fish, meat and plants, and even engaged in filter-feeding like whales.
The diet debate has persisted because of the limited amount of fossilised pterosaur food remains – either from within a body cavity or in the form of regurgitated food or excreted waste.
Direct stomach contents would be the strongest evidence, which was “exceedingly rare”, the team said. But it is difficult to know for certain, as there are only five confirmed cases of pterosaur stomach contents in the earlier, non-pterodactyloid species, which mostly contained fish remains.
The extremely rare, nearly complete Sinopterus specimen was found by IVPP researchers at a Lower Cretaceous geological formation in China’s northeastern Liaoning province. It is part of a family of toothless pterosaurs called Tapejaridae.
The Sinopterus fossil was preserved within a fine shale slab, a fine-grained rock formed from the compaction of mud that is known for preserving delicate fossils.
To determine whether the remains found in its body cavity were stomach contents, the team – which also included researchers from Shenyang Normal University and the National Museum of Brazil – used specialised 3D X-ray imaging.
They found a fine, claylike material that appeared to be undigested plant material. These remains contained rigid microscopic structures that appeared to be phytoliths, which form within the cells of some plants and can remain behind even after the rest of the plant has decayed.
Their insolubility, as well as their ability to be linked to specific plants, has allowed scientists to use phytoliths to help determine the diets of extinct species.


In the Sinopterus specimen, there were 320 phytoliths within the remains. The researchers compared them to a database of more than 4,000 modern phytoliths, but only 10 per cent could be classified based on today’s scientific naming system.
Some of these classified phytoliths resembled those found in modern woody plants, broad-leaved plants and ferns.
“Phytolith morphologies in the stomach contents, with this high diversity, are nearly impossible to attribute to one single taxon based on the recent knowledge, which suggests that Sinopterus might have consumed a diverse range of plants,” the team said. A taxon is a named group or unit in biological classification.
Imaging of the stomach contents also showed the presence of gastroliths, which is often interpreted as an indicator of herbivory – though some carnivores also retain them.
The gastroliths found within the stomach remains were small – grains the size of sand particles, which appeared to be quartz, a material that is “suitable for crushing and grinding foodstuff in the gizzard”, the team said.


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An artist’s impression of a reconstruction of the young Telmatosaurus transsylvanicus showing the deformity in its lower jaw. Illustration: Mihai Dumbrava/University of Southampton

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News

China

China-Brazil study of rare fossilised reptile stomach reveals first evidence that ancient winged creatures enjoyed munching on plants


China-Brazil study of rare fossilised reptile stomach reveals first evidence that ancient winged creatures enjoyed munching on plants.


Brazil

Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)

Dino-era diet debate: Chinese pterosaur fossil rewrites menu of ancient flying reptile

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}China-Brazil study of rare fossilised reptile stomach reveals first evidence that ancient winged creatures enjoyed munching on plants

China-Brazil study of rare fossilised reptile stomach reveals first evidence that ancient winged creatures enjoyed munching on plants