Lucky find: Complete fossil of a pterosaur reconstructed

Police officers seized one of the best-preserved pterosaur skeletons in the country during a raid in Brazil in 2013, along with other illegally executed fossils.

As a research group from the University of São Paulo

reports

in the journal

, the pterosaur fossil consists of almost the entire, largely intact skeleton, including remnants of soft tissue along the bones.

The fossil of the species

is embedded in six limestone slabs. The researchers working with Victor Beccari put the plates together and examined the fossils using computed tomography, among other things. The analysis suggests that

certain prerequisites for flying, but was more likely to move on the ground due to the long neck and proportions of the limbs as well as a large head crest. The pterosaur, which lived 113 million years ago, had a wingspan of about 2.6 meters. His decorative feather wreath on his head was striking.

In Brazil, parts of pterosaurs are repeatedly found and new species are discovered.

Significant fossil deposits are the Araripe Basin in the north-west of the country, where the confiscated specimen comes from, and the Paraná Basin in the south.

Only fossilized fragments of

had been found

prior to the confiscation

.

Fossils of long-extinct species are regularly seized in raids that are intended for the illegal trade, which is worth millions.

In April, the Brazilian public prosecutor obtained that France must return around a thousand objects that had been smuggled into Europe in containers from the northwestern state of Ceará without a permit.