Enormous pterosaur discovered in Scotland shows they existed 25 million years earlier than previously thought

• A rare, near-complete fossilized skeleton of a pterosaur was found in Scotland.
• It would have been the largest animal to fly 170 million years ago, with an 8-foot wingspan.

Scientists uncovered the fossil of an enormous flying pterosaur that lived 170 million years ago, the first of its kind.

The findings push back our understanding of when these large animals were first able to fly, moving it around 25 million years further into the past, per a scientific study.

The animal would have had an estimated wingspan of over 8 feet, according to findings published in the journal Current Biology on Tuesday. It was a juvenile, so adults may have been bigger still, per the study.

This new species of pterosaur was called Dearc sgiathanach, which means winged reptile in Gaelic, just as pterosaur means winged reptile in Greek.

The findings rely on the discovery of an exceptionally-well preserved fossil from Scotland's Isle of Skye, unearthed in 2017.

About 70% of the animal's skeleton was preserved in the fossil, one of the study authors told NBC News.

The bones were preserved in three dimensions, rather than compressed flat as is in most such fossils, said Greg Funston, a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh and another author on the paper told Insider.

Crucial bones missing from the fossil make it impossible to know exactly how big the animal was, Funston said.

But a calculation developed by the study authors estimates its wingspan at about 8ft, a little smaller than an albatross.

By taking razor-thin cuts of the rock containing the fossil to look at them under a microscope, the scientists also found that the bones of the animal were still growing when the pterosaur died, meaning adult wingspans were likely larger.

Though they are not classified as dinosaurs, pterosaurs spanned the age of the dinosaurs from the late Triassic period, about 228 million years ago, to the end of the Cretaceous 66 million years ago.

Enormous pterosaurs, with wingspans reaching up to 30 ft — the likes of which appeared in the "Jurassic Park" movies — appeared during the Cretaceous era. Those were wiped out during a mass extinction event 66 million years ago.

Before the Skye fossil was found, scientists thought that pterosaurs would have been small for most of the time they existed.

The theory was that the physics of flight held back their development, as getting relatively heavy creatures to fly would have required a specialized type of wing that took time to evolve. Another theory was that the reptiles had to grow bigger to outcompete birds, which first appeared in the Cretaceous.

"It's been the entrenched idea for a long time that the big pterosaurs are the ones in the Cretaceous and before that they're all quite small," Funston said.

"That's kind of what you're taught in school."

However, Dearc sgiathanach is thought to have flown around the then-tropical landscape of Scotland around 170 million years ago.

This was "way back in the Jurassic period," Professor Steve Brusatte of the University of Edinburgh, an author on the study, said in a video accompanying the finding.

That's much earlier than previously thought, and before any birds existed.

"I think it really does challenge a lot of the ideas that we had," Funston said.

The fossil is likely to reveal more secrets as scientists dig into it further, Funston said.

"For this animal to be preserved in three dimensions without that squishing gives us kind of a new look at some of the different bones, he said

"For example, some regions of the skull, especially the delicate pallet, which is the roof of the mouth, are exceptionally well preserved in this animal."

"I'm sure there are gonna be some other surprises that come out of it, as we use new techniques to understand the bones and to analyze them," Funston said.