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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

Petrified puke shows that ancient winged reptiles purged

Pterosaurs, prehistoric beasts that lived alongside the dinosaurs, not only flew like birds, but also vomited like them.
A fossil of Kunpengopterus sinensis associated with a pellet, from the Late Jurassic Linglongta Locality of China.

A young pterosaur and the pellet (dark brown circle, left) of fish scales it regurgitated shortly before its death have been preserved in stone for more than 100 million years. Credit: J. Shunxing et al./Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

An analysis of fossilized puke has revealed that, just like people, extinct winged reptiles called pterosaurs could vomit — a habit that is providing clues to their diet and anatomy1.

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Nature 602, 365 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00361-7

References

  1. Jiang, S. et al. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2021.0043 (2022).

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