Description
- Pterosaur Tooth
- Species: Coloborhynchus moroccensis
- Age: Cretaceous, 100 Million Years Old
- Source: South of Taouz, Morocco
- Size: 26mm
- Image shows exact item received.
Pterosaurs were flying reptiles that lived approximately 228 to 66 million years ago from the Late Triassic through to the end of the Cretaceous period. They have been a heavily studied by palaeontologists due to their diversity and adaptability to fill various ecological niches. Some Pterosaurs evolved to feed on fish, others insects, some foraged for fruit, other hunted small land vertebrates, a couple of species even evolved to filter feed whilst flying over the surface of water.
Their fossils have been discovered all over the world, and have been exceptionally interesting and important in understanding the evolution of flight as they were the first vertebrates to achieve powered flight, pre-dating birds and bats by millions of years. Pterosaurs were related to dinosaurs and modern birds. They ranged in size from small bird-sized species with wingspans of less than a meter to giants of up to 12m like Quetzalcoatlus.
This Pterosaur tooth is from Coloborhynchus moroccensis, and was found South of the town of Taouz in Morocco in an area of sedimentary deposits known as the Kem Kem Beds. Many fossils have been found in this area, predominantly of fish as well as Pterosaurs and Theropod dinosaurs. Due to the habitat and abundance of fish fossils it is believed the Pterosaurs and Dinosaurs in this area were mostly piscivorous (fish-feeders) and hunted in the estuarine and coastal areas. Coloborhynchus moroccensis, sometimes called Siroccopteryx moroccensis, was a large pterosaur with a wingspan of 4 to 5 metres (13 to 16ft) and a head that measured 50 to 70cm. The head was adorned with a crest at the tip of the jaw, similar to Tropeognathus, however no specimen found has been complete enough to show the extent of this structure.
