Mirasaura grauvogeli, a Drepanosaur with unusual skin structures

[Libraraptor]

The Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart just released news about having discovered a new species of Drepanosaur in a drawer. The Triassic fossils had been discovered in the 1930s in France and have been "waiting" there for 90 years or so    What´s so special about this species is the long skin appendixes.

I wonder if it is somewhat connected to Longisquama.

Here´s the NATURE article:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09167-9

[DinoToyForum]

The Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart just released news about having discovered a new species of Drepanosaur in a drawer. The Triassic fossils had been discovered in the 1930s in France and have been "waiting" there for 90 years or so    What´s so special about this species is the long skin appendixes.

I wonder if it is somewhat connected to Longisquama.

Here´s the NATURE article:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09167-9

It forms a sister relationship with Longisquama in their cladogram.

[andrewsaurus rex]

wow, it looks like a critter out of a star wars movie.

[Faelrin]

Nice to see a relative to Longisquama finally described, and with the weird morphology. Wouldn't have guessed it was a drepanosauromorph though.

I saw the paper mentioned it had melanosomes which were described as feather like in their shape, but they never mention what potential color they are? And unless I missed it did they mention from where on the body they were obtained from?

[Libraraptor]

Nice to see a relative to Longisquama finally described, and with the weird morphology. Wouldn't have guessed it was a drepanosauromorph though.

I saw the paper mentioned it had melanosomes which were described as feather like in their shape, but they never mention what potential color they are? And unless I missed it did they mention from where on the body they were obtained from?

The melanosomes were obtained directly from the the skin structures.

[Faelrin]

@Libraraptor Thanks. Figures I missed something with it, what with having read it right after waking up.

[Halichoeres]

Amazing. Another reason the Triassic was the coolest period of the Mesozoic.

@Faelrin melanosomes can only produce yellows, browns, and black. But the ones that make black are easiest to preserve, so I would bet on a dark color. And they're from the "integumentary appendages," that is, the skin sail. That at lesst rules out that they're plant pieces, which has been suggested for Longisquama's appendages!

[Libraraptor]

I certainly don´t want to start a Longisquama battle here, but I heard it´s highly controversial. Who among you can reasonably inform me about this?

[Torvosaurus]

...melanosomes can only produce yellows, browns, and black...

Don't pheomelanins cover a yellow/red color set (with eumelanins covering a brown/black color set)?

Torvo

[Halichoeres]

...melanosomes can only produce yellows, browns, and black...

Don't pheomelanins cover a yellow/red color set (with eumelanins covering a brown/black color set)?

Torvo

That's right! Pheomelanins can produce a color we call red, but is really sort of yellow-orange, like a red fox. For bright reds you need carotenoids, porphyrins, or bare skin with dense vasculature. These are pretty much impossible to detect in fossils.

[GojiraGuy1954]

I certainly don´t want to start a Longisquama battle here, but I heard it´s highly controversial. Who among you can reasonably inform me about this?

Taxonomically Longisquama at one point was pretty uncertain, but now it's pretty solidly in Drepanosauromrpha. You may be thinking of the "scientific" reconstructions of Longisquama by David Peters, who for whatever reason insists on including erroneous features not present in any specimen and calling it an ancestral Pterosaur

[GojiraGuy1954]

Man, we really need good models of Drepanosaurus, Hypuronector, Longisquama, and this new one.

[Torvosaurus]

...melanosomes can only produce yellows, browns, and black...

Don't pheomelanins cover a yellow/red color set (with eumelanins covering a brown/black color set)?

Torvo

That's right! Pheomelanins can produce a color we call red, but is really sort of yellow-orange, like a red fox. For bright reds you need carotenoids, porphyrins, or bare skin with dense vasculature. These are pretty much impossible to detect in fossils.

Thanks. We're on the same page. There is a paper on a colubrid snake that shows carotenoid and structural pigmentations in fossils, but it is definitely rare.

Torvo

[carliro]

Given this study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004224005960

I wonder if more fuzzy integument will be found among early amniotes