Researchers find fossilized non-flying precursor to pterosaurs in Brazil- Venetoraptor gassenae

[Prehistory Resurrection]

Link to article: https://phys.org/news/2023-08-fossilized-nonflying-precursor-pterosaur-brazil.html

[Prehistory Resurrection]

[Saarlooswolfhound]

Huh, an intriguing find. Thanks for sharing!

[Halichoeres]

I remember when finding something closer to pterosaurs than to birds was one of the fondest wishes of paleontologists. I mean, maybe it still is, but it seemed nearly impossible once upon a time.

[BlueKrono]

Seems weird they describe it as having a toothless beak, then the illustration has a bunch of teeth in its mouth.

[Newt]

Neat! Here's the journal article.

I'd seen it bruited before that Lagerpetidae were the sister or ancestral stock of Pterosauria. From what I could glean from the abstract of the (paywalled) article, this lagerpetid is not more pterosaur-like than others, just more complete. Hopefully I will manage to read the whole article someday; I'm interested to see if they have any additional evidence for the lagerpetid-pterosaur relationship. And of course the animal is interesting in its own right; Triassic archosaurs are boss.

@BlueKrono - I think the researchers meant that the animal had a toothless beak at the front of the jaws, similar to many ornithischians, rather than no teeth at all.