170-Million-Year-Old Pterodactyl Fossil Unearthed in Scotland, Hailed as the ‘Discovery of the Century’ and Largest Ever Found

Fossil has been unveiled at the National Museum of Scotland. 170 million-year-old fossil of flying reptile unveiled

The most important pterodactyl fossil find in Britain in around 200 years has been put on display for the first time.

It dates back more than 170 million years and has been described as the “discovery of the century”.

The prehistoric specimen has been hailed as the best-preserved skeleton of a pterosaur – a huge flying reptile – and the largest ever discovered from the Jurassic period.

The giant winged creature, more popularly known as pterodactyls, is closely related to dinosaurs and had an estimated wingspan of more than 2.5 metres, similar to that of an albatross today.

The fossil, which was found during a National Geographic Society-funded excavation on the Isle of Skye in 2017, will now be added to the museum’s collection, where it was unveiled on Tuesday.

An illustration shows the newly identified Jurassic Period flying reptile, or pterosaur, called ‘Dearc sgiathanach’, whose fossil was found on a rocky beach at Scotland’s Isle of Skye, flying alongside a large meat-eating dinosaur.

Speaking about the ground-breaking discovery, University of Edinburgh PhD student Natalia Jagielska, who was lead author in a new paper featuring the fossil, described the finding as “a discovery of the century”.

Posing proudly with it for photos, Ms Jagielska said: “The finding has pieced together a huge gap in fossil records for us.

Holding a much smaller stuffed toy version of the reptile on her shoulder, Ms Jagielska said the fossil shows that the pterosaur was “much bigger and more diverse than we expected during the Jurassic period.”

“They were also very goofy looking creatures,” she laughed.

Researchers carry part of the fossil of a newly identified Jurassic Period pterosaur found on a rocky beach at Scotland’s Isle of Skye, Britain in 2017. Reuters

“The discovery is also super interesting because this fossil shows there was clearly a lot of evolution going on in that time period.

“And it shows that Scotland is a key piece to discovering that evolutionary variation, the best place in the world, it might be.

“If these delicate bones of the pterosaur can be preserved well, that means other creatures can, and if other creatures can, we might fill the gap in records of the Jurassic period just in Scotland alone.”

However, they were previously thought to have been much smaller during the Jurassic Period.

Fragmentary specimens from England had hinted at the possibility that larger pterosaurs lived during the Jurassic Period and Dearc sgiathanach is the first complete specimen to confirm this.

The unique fossil will now be added to National Museums Scotland’s collection and studied further.