150 million-year-old pterosaur cold case has finally been solved
One hundred and fifty million years ago, the Solnhofen Limestones of Germany were covered in small islands and warm saltwater lagoons. Coral reefs flourished with crinoids, sponges, jellyfish, and crustaceans; Dragonflies buzzed above the water as small reptiles sunned themselves at the water’s edge. Pterosaurs and Archaeopteryx took to the skies, but there was trouble in this Jurassic paradise: Tropical storms would turn it into a pterosaur graveyard. What paleontologist Rab Smyth found in thi