A piece of bone from the wing joint of a pterodactyl has been found at Stevns Klint, making it the first discovery of pterodactyl remains on Danish soil. Conservator Sten Lennart Jakobsen from Geomuseum Faxe found the small piece of bone at the cliff near Holtug.
- In the more than 50 years I've been collecting fossils at Stevns Klint, I never imagined that I would find a piece of lizard. It was like winning the main prize in the lottery," says Sten Lennart Jakobsen about the experience.
The piece of bone measures 5 mm in length and 1.3 mm in thickness. Such a small bone fragment is usually unidentifiable, but articulated bones are built differently from species to species, and Sten Lennart Jakobsen noticed that the bone was hollow and had a very thin bone wall of only 0.1 millimeters thick. This type of hollow and very thin-walled bone is only found in birds and the extinct flying lizards.
One of the last pterodactyls on earth
The bone has been examined by paleontologist Bent Lindow, who is an expert in fossil birds. He has assessed that the find is a piece of the flight finger of a flying lizard.
Museum curator Jesper Milàn from Geomuseum Faxe is excited about the find:
- This is the most important find that has been made at Stevns Klint in the 15 years I've worked here. We always knew that the pterodactyls must have been there because they were widespread all over the world, but they have never been found in the Danish chalk until now. The discovery is particularly exciting because it was found in the very top layer of the chalk, so we know that this lizard lived within the last 50,000 years of the Cretaceous period, which was 66 million years ago, and that it was among the very last lizards on earth, says Jesper Milàn.
See the pterodactyl find at Geomuseum Faxe
The piece of bone can be seen on Saturday, October 26 in connection with Fossil Day at Geomuseum Faxe, and the display of the large and small find requires some equipment:
- The bone is extremely small, so it's a challenge to communicate. That's why we're setting up a powerful digital microscope so that visitors on Fossil Day have a chance to see it properly. We're also borrowing a model of a small pterodactyl from 10Tons, a company that makes models of ancient animals for museums. This can give an impression of where the bone comes from," says Jesper Milàn.
Geomuseum Faxe is part of Østsjællands Museum, which has the geological responsibility for Stevns and Faxe municipalities. The geology of limestone is thus one of the museum's core areas.
Facts about pterodactyls:
Pterosaurs were a group of reptiles related to crocodiles and dinosaurs that had developed the ability to fly. Their wings were built in a unique way, with one finger being extremely elongated and holding a membrane of skin that they used to fly. Lizards emerged as an animal group back in the middle of the Triassic geological time period, around 245 million years ago, and they were the absolute rulers of the skies until the end of the Cretaceous period when they became extinct along with the great dinosaurs. Lizards came in all sizes, from tiny forms no bigger than a sparrow to giants with a wingspan of over 12 meters. The bone found in Stevns comes from the innermost joint of the extended "flight finger" of a small flying lizard not much bigger than a small gull.
Additional information:
Curator Jesper Milàn, Geomuseum Faxe, email: jesperm@oesm.dk / phone: 30242543