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Description
At the bottom of a lagoon 150 million years ago, in what will one day become the Solnhofen limestone, a body lies. It is a male Pterodactylus antiquus, or at least he was until death claimed him as he flew over the lagoon. He has lay at the bottom for nearly two days, and the decay is just beginning. His wing membranes have tattered and his bright breeding colours have started to pale. It isn't over yet; soon the soft tissue will rot away and the skeleton will disarticulate slightly. But soon enough, his skeleton will be buried under silt and sand and his bones shall fossilise, becoming one with the resulting limestone. And there he will lay, under the earth, untouched and undisturbed, for 150 million years. Until one day, in the late 1700s, a limestone miner in Germany shall unearth him, revealing the former existence of his kind to the human world. George Cuvier will recognise him as a flying reptile, and in 1809 shall call him 'Pterodactylus'. He shall be forever remembered as the first pterosaur known to science.

In today's Vertebrate Palaeontology lecture, we finally got on to pterosaurs, the vertebrates I was most looking forward to having a lecture about (except maybe mosasaurs). Of course we were taught all about this specimen, the original pterodactyl. It's amazing how the very first recognised pterosaur find was something so complete. And this fossil is a survivor too. During the Miocene, the Solnhofen limestone was hit directly by a meteorite impact. An entire 10km radius of the limestone, and the fossils within, were vaporised. But this fossil managed to be outside the impact radius, and survived into the present resulting in its' discovery.

Furthermore, during the Second World War, it was housed in the Paläontologisches Museum München in Munich, and there it was on the eve of the devastating Munich bombing. The head curator of the museum was a devoted Nazi, and when his fellow curators suggested moving the museums' fossils over to a safer location, he reported them to the Gestapo for having no faith in the Luftwaffe. They were right however, and the museum was destroyed in the bombing, along with a cavalcade of important fossils, such as the original Spinosaurus holotype and the only known Aegyptosaurus remains. However, some curators managed to smuggle some smaller fossils out to safety before the bombing occurred. Amongst them, the original Pterodactylus holotype.

This fossil has been through hell, but that also means has a huge story to tell, which is fitting for one of the most important fossil finds in history; the first pterosaur.

Description
At the bottom of a lagoon 150 million years ago, in what will one day become the Solnhofen limestone, a body lies. It is a male Pterodactylus antiquus, or at least he was until death claimed him as he flew over the lagoon. He has lay at the bottom for nearly two days, and the decay is just beginning. His wing membranes have tattered and his bright breeding colours have started to pale. It isn't over yet; soon the soft tissue will rot away and the skeleton will disarticulate slightly. But soon enough, his skeleton will be buried under silt and sand and his bones shall fossilise, becoming one with the resulting limestone. And there he will lay, under the earth, untouched and undisturbed, for 150 million years. Until one day, in the late 1700s, a limestone miner in Germany shall unearth him, revealing the former existence of his kind to the human world. George Cuvier will recognise him as a flying reptile, and in 1809 shall call him 'Pterodactylus'. He shall be forever remembered as the first pterosaur known to science.

In today's Vertebrate Palaeontology lecture, we finally got on to pterosaurs, the vertebrates I was most looking forward to having a lecture about (except maybe mosasaurs). Of course we were taught all about this specimen, the original pterodactyl. It's amazing how the very first recognised pterosaur find was something so complete. And this fossil is a survivor too. During the Miocene, the Solnhofen limestone was hit directly by a meteorite impact. An entire 10km radius of the limestone, and the fossils within, were vaporised. But this fossil managed to be outside the impact radius, and survived into the present resulting in its' discovery.

Furthermore, during the Second World War, it was housed in the Paläontologisches Museum München in Munich, and there it was on the eve of the devastating Munich bombing. The head curator of the museum was a devoted Nazi, and when his fellow curators suggested moving the museums' fossils over to a safer location, he reported them to the Gestapo for having no faith in the Luftwaffe. They were right however, and the museum was destroyed in the bombing, along with a cavalcade of important fossils, such as the original Spinosaurus holotype and the only known Aegyptosaurus remains. However, some curators managed to smuggle some smaller fossils out to safety before the bombing occurred. Amongst them, the original Pterodactylus holotype.

This fossil has been through hell, but that also means has a huge story to tell, which is fitting for one of the most important fossil finds in history; the first pterosaur.