New discoveries!

ITN – Tuesday, February 12 09:31 am

‘Scientists believe they have found evidence of a tiny pterodactyl in China. The toothless flying reptile has been studied at Brazil’s national museum, where it was found to have a wing span of just 250 millimetres (9.8 inches) and unexpectedly-curved toes.

Most pterodactyl fossils are found in coastal areas but this specimen was discovered in the western part of China’s Liaoning province, which would have been covered in forest 120 million years ago.

As a result, scientists have called the reptile “Nemicolopterus crypticus,” which means ‘hidden flying forest dweller’,

Palaeontologist Alexander Kellner said: “The fundamental importance of this discovery is that it opens up a new chapter in the history of evolution of these flying reptiles.

“So far, we never knew that these animals were adapted to live in the canopies of the trees, which is the case of the Nemicolopterus.”

The tiny fossilised reptile has a skull that is not fully fused, so it died before reaching adulthood, but the ends of the bones were developed, so it was not a hatchling either.’

 What a fantastic discovery. Here we are in the early part of the 21st Century and we are still making major discoveries about the world on which we live and the animals that have inhabited it.  However we need to be on our guard, some people would read a story like this and have a very different take on it, being as the world was created as it is now some 10,000 years ago! It’s easy to laugh about this but there are front running politicians in the US who are creationists.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7129882.stm