Ben Kligman, Peter Buck Postdoctoral Fellow and paleontologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (IMAGE)
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Ben Kligman, a Peter Buck Postdoctoral Fellow and paleontologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, quarrying a bonebed in Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park in 2025.
A Smithsonian-led team of researchers have discovered North America’s oldest known pterosaur, the winged reptiles that lived alongside dinosaurs and were the first vertebrates to evolve powered flight. In a paper published today, July 7, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers led by Kligman present the fossilized jawbone of the new species and describe the sea gull-sized pterosaur alongside hundreds of other fossils—including one of the world’s oldest turtle fossils—unearthed at a remote bonebed in the park.
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Ben Kligman, Smithsonian.
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