A bone fragment from the wing joint of a pterosaur has been found at Stevns Klint, marking the first discovery of pterosaur remains on Danish soil. Conservator Sten Lennart Jakobsen from Geomuseum Faxe found the small bone fragment on the cliff near Holtug.
“In the more than 50 years I’ve been collecting fossils at Stevns Klint, I never imagined I’d find a piece of a pterosaur. It was like winning the jackpot in the lottery,” says Sten Lennart Jakobsen, describing the experience.
The bone fragment measures 5 mm in length and 1.3 mm in thickness. A bone fragment this small usually cannot be identified, but joint bones in particular vary in structure from species to species, and Sten Lennart Jakobsen noted that the bone was hollow and had a very thin bone wall, only 0.1 millimeters thick. This specific type of hollow, very thin-walled bone is found only in birds and the extinct pterosaurs.
One of the last pterosaurs on Earth
The bone fragment has been examined by paleontologist Bent Lindow, an expert in bird fossils. He has determined that the find is a piece of the flight finger of a pterosaur.
Museum Curator Jesper Milàn from Geomuseum Faxe is thrilled about the discovery:
– This is the most important discovery made at Stevns Klint in the 15 years I’ve worked here. We’ve always known that pterosaurs must have been there, since they were widespread all over the world, but they’ve never been found in the Danish Cretaceous until now. The discovery is particularly exciting because it was found in the very top layer of the chalk; therefore, we know that this pterosaur lived during the last 50,000 years of the Cretaceous Period, which ended 66 million years ago, and that it was among the very last pterosaurs on Earth,” says Jesper Milàn.
See the pterosaur find at Geomuseum Faxe
The bone fragment will be on display Saturday, October 26, as part of Fossil Day at the Geomuseum Faxe, and showcasing this find—which is both large and small at the same time—requires quite a bit of preparation:
– The bone fragment is extremely small, so it’s a challenge to showcase. That’s why we’re setting up a high-powered digital microscope so that visitors on Fossil Day have a chance to see it properly. We’re also borrowing a model of a small pterosaur from the company 10Tons, which creates models of prehistoric animals for museums. This can give visitors an idea of where the bone came from, says Jesper Milàn.
Geomuseum Faxe is part of the East Zealand Museum, which, among other things, is responsible for geological matters in the municipalities of Stevns and Faxe. The geology of limestone is therefore one of the museum’s core areas of focus.
Facts about pterosaurs:
Flying lizards, or pterosaurs, were a group of reptiles related to crocodiles and dinosaurs that had developed the ability to fly. Their wings were constructed in a completely unique way, as one of their fingers had become extremely elongated and supported a membrane of skin that they used to fly. Pterosaurs first appeared as a group of animals in the middle of the Triassic Period, about 245 million years ago, and they were the undisputed rulers of the skies until the end of the Cretaceous Period, when they became extinct along with the large dinosaurs. Pterosaurs came in all sizes, ranging from tiny species no larger than a sparrow to giants with a wingspan of over 12 meters. The bone found at Stevns comes from the innermost joint of the elongated “wing finger” of a small pterosaur that was not much larger than a small seagull.
Additional information:
Museum Curator Jesper Milàn, Geomuseum Faxe, email: jesperm@oesm.dk / phone: 30242543