The fossilised skull of the flying dinosaur

Scientists have discovered a new type of flying reptile from the dinosaur age — and named it after Shrewsbury-born naturalist Charles Darwin.

Named the Darwinopterus, the creature was one of many kinds of pterosaurs, or pterodactyles, which dominated the skies in the Mesozoic era 220 to 65 million years ago.

It was identified by a group of researchers from the University of Leicester and the Geological Institute in Beijing.

The discovery also provided the first clear evidence of an unusual and controversial type of evolution, they said.

It is thought to fill the evolutionary gap between two types of pterosaurs — primitive long-tailed forms and their descendants, advanced short-tailed pterosaurs, some of which reached a gigantic size.

How it might have looked

The researchers said the groups were separated by a large evolutionary gap, identified in Charles Darwin’s time, which looked as if it would never be filled — until now.

Details of the new pterosaur, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, fits exactly in the middle of that gap.

More than 20 fossil skeletons of Darwinopterus, some of them complete, were found this year in north-east China in rocks dated about 160 million years old.

The new discovery was christened Darwinopterus, meaning Darwin’s wing, to honour the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his book On The Origin Of Species.

Doctor David Unwin, from the University of Leicester, who was part of the research team, said today: “Darwinopterus came as quite a shock to us.”