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Thursday, October 28, 2010

Photo: Pterosaur's Wing, "Hairs" Unlike Any Living Animals'


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Found in a slab of Chinese shale loaded with ancient crustaceans and ash, this 135-million-year-old fossil has some of the best preserved soft tissue yet found in a pterosaur, researchers said in an August 2009 study.

New analysis of the creature's wings has shown that it had uniquely complex wing membranes and a covering of fibers quite different from the hair on modern mammals.

Photograph courtesy Alexander Kellner