A computer reconstruction of Kongonaphon kely, a 237 million-year-old reptile and dinosaur ancestor.
Frank Ippolito / American Museum of Natural History ©
A homuncular species discovered in a sandstone basin in southern Madagascar more than two decades ago may provide clues to the origins of dinosaurs, including how pterosaurs learned to fly and why the creatures may have been covered in covers. “fuzzy” fur like feathers.
The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday, describes the discovery of a handful of fossils from a 237 million-year-old reptile, nicknamed Kongonaphon Kely, for the first time. Its name is derived from both the Malagasy language of Madagascar and ancient Greek and means “little insect killer”. It was found in the Morondava Basin, a gray sandstone basin in southern Madagascar, and is shorter than an iPhone, with a height of about four inches.
(This is not science, but look at the illustration on the right and you will see that it is likely extremely pretty.)
An illustration of the newly discovered archosaur.
Alex Boersma
It has been classified as an archosaur, a common ancestor of both dinosaurs and flying pterosaurs, and provides valuable clues to the early evolution of these animals, which were orders of magnitude larger than the tiny Kongonaphon.
“There is a general perception that dinosaurs are giants,” Christian Kammerer, a paleontologist at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, said in a statement. “But this new animal is very close to the divergence of dinosaurs and pterosaurs and is surprisingly small.”
By studying the fossil samples, the team was able to understand the early evolution of archosaurs, and evidence seems to suggest that they began minitaurizing around the time dinosaurs and pterosaurs appeared. The newly unearthed creature’s teeth also allowed the research team to conclude that it probably ate insects. Being a reptile so small that it certainly makes sense and would have helped the little insect killer survive.
The reduction in body size may also have helped stimulate evolutionary success in dinosaurs and pterosaurs, according to the researchers. Miniaturization makes it much more difficult to retain heat, and the research team hypothesizes that Kongonaphon provides evidence that fuzzy fur covers, such as feathers, may have originated to stay warm. Furthermore, previous research has shown that miniaturization may be a necessary precursor to powered flight.
Kongonaphon may have provided paleontologists with a window into dinosaur and pterosaur prehistory, revealing how beasts came to dominate the planet during the Middle Triassic period around 230 million years ago.
