June 13, 2007 — Late Triassic dinosaurs might have looked up to see a tiny, long-necked reptile gliding by, according to a research team that has identified such a creature.
The 220 million-year-old glider, Mecistrotrachelos apeoros, was probably a protorosaur, a group of ancient, long-necked reptiles that predated and later co-existed with dinosaurs. One member of this group, Tanystropheus, grew to 12 feet long, and half of that was neck.
Its newly discovered relative, which measured just 10 inches long, once soared over what is now the Virginia-North Carolina border. Scientists found two specimens embedded in separate blocks of hard slate and shale-like stone at a site there called the Solite Quarry.
Nick Fraser of the Virginia Museum of Natural History found the fossils, but he told Discovery News that he first thought they were bony fish tails.
"One day I was looking at the second specimen," he said, and "the sun radiated over what I thought were fish bones and I said to myself, 'This thing has a head and a long neck! It's a reptile!'"
To better analyze the finds, Fraser and colleague Tim Ryan conducted a CT scan at Penn State's Center for Quantitative Imaging. The scan revealed the "greeny-brown" reptile had unusual feet and ribs, in addition to its long neck.
Their findings are published in today's issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
"Reptiles typically have fairly long toes but, in this case, the feet are quite small," Fraser said. "They were also preserved in a hooked posture, so it is likely these were grasping feet belonging to a reptile adapted to arboreal existence."
The specimens also showed thickening in their upper ribs, which indicates "a reasonable amount of muscle" was once attached there to control skin flaps resembling wings.
The researchers doubt the reptile could flap these pseudo wings, but they do believe the muscles indicate the creature was no haphazard flier.
