In 2013, a police raid at Santos Harbor in Brazil recovered about 3,000 smuggled fossils, including the most intact specimen of a type of big-headed pterosaur ever found.
Identified as Tupandactylus navigans, the fossil is a member of a group of pterosaurs called tapejarids. These pterosaurs are known for their oversize, crested skulls, and hail from the early Cretaceous Period, which lasted from about 145 million to 100 million years ago.
Some well-preserved tapejarid fossils have been found in China, but they aren’t as complete as the newly analyzed fossil, and the pterosaur’s anatomy hadn’t been fully described. “This is the first time we have the full skull and the full [body],” says Victor Beccari, a paleontologist at the NOVA School of Science & Technology in Caparica, Portugal.
When Beccari’s team received the fossil in 2016, it had already been cut into six blocks. “It’s a shame,” Beccari says, “but we used it to our advantage.” The researchers fit the sliced pieces inside a CT scanner, and then used the scans to produce a 3-D model of the pterosaur’s skeleton that revealed parts still buried inside rock.
Identified as Tupandactylus navigans, the fossil is a member of a group of pterosaurs called tapejarids. These pterosaurs are known for their oversize, crested skulls, and hail from the early Cretaceous Period, which lasted from about 145 million to 100 million years ago.
Some well-preserved tapejarid fossils have been found in China, but they aren’t as complete as the newly analyzed fossil, and the pterosaur’s anatomy hadn’t been fully described. “This is the first time we have the full skull and the full [body],” says Victor Beccari, a paleontologist at the NOVA School of Science & Technology in Caparica, Portugal.
When Beccari’s team received the fossil in 2016, it had already been cut into six blocks. “It’s a shame,” Beccari says, “but we used it to our advantage.” The researchers fit the sliced pieces inside a CT scanner, and then used the scans to produce a 3-D model of the pterosaur’s skeleton that revealed parts still buried inside rock.
