A new type of pterosaur has been identified from a squashed fossil that was almost ruined when car body filler was used to hold it in place.

The toothless pterosaur dates back 115 million years and its skull was preserved in limestone, but the remains were fragile and the workers who found it decided to strengthen it with filler.

The filler was so tough that it proved impossible to remove for fear of damaging the fragile fossil and meant that researchers could glimpse only a small part of the skull poking out of the limestone.

Mark Witton, the University of Portsmouth academic who identified the specimen, broke several tools trying to cut through the filler and was able to see what the skull looked like only by resorting to a CT scan.

“The specimen was quite fragile so the guys who were collecting it – probably quarrymen – very sensibly decided to put a large slab of limestone underneath to strengthen it,” he said. “Unfortunately, they used car body filler as the glue. The infernal car filler was a real cow to get through. I don’t know how many tools I broke trying to cut it.

“I’m sure it was used with the best of intentions but the person who did it perhaps hadn’t thought it through.”

Further problems in interpreting the remains were encountered because the skull was misshapen: “Usually fossils like this are found lying on their sides, but this one was lying on the roof of its mouth and had been rather squashed, which made even figuring out whether it had teeth difficult.”

He named the pterosaur the magnificent lake wanderer, Lacusovagus magnificens.It had an estimated wingspan of up to 16ft 6in (5m) – longer than a family car – and when standing it would have been more than 3ft (1m) tall.

It is the biggest of its kind, though half the size of the largest pterosaurs yet uncovered, and was a giant compared with its closest relatives, which measured as little as 2ft (60cm) long.

The skull of the magnificent lake wanderer was much wider than is usual for pterosaurs and Mr Witton believes this indicated that it had a wide throat, which would have vastly increased the range of prey available to it. Pterosaurs are widely thought of as fish-eaters, but he said it was likely that the new species would have eaten small dinosaurs, which it would have swallowed whole.

Mr Witton believes the ancient creature would, despite being preserved in a lakeland environment, have spent most of its time as a terrestrial species, stalking prey on land surrounding wetlands.

The fossil was discovered in the Araripe Basin, in northeast Brazil, and is providing fresh insights into the geographical spread of pterosaurs because its closest relatives were found in China.

“The discovery of something like this in Brazil – so far away from its closest relatives in China – demonstrates how little we actually know about the distribution and evolutionary history of this fascinating group of creatures,” he said.

The find was reported in the journal Palaeontology.

Size for size

The pterosaur had a wingspan of 16 ft 6 in (about 5m). That is the equivalent of:

— one rod, the traditional length of a goad used for oxen
— the length of a modern hippopotamus
— the diameter of the Titanic's central propeller
— the maximum depth of the Grand Canal in Venice

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