Answers from ‘cookie monster’ skull

A FRAGMENT of a skull from a 125 million-year-old flying reptile has unlocked secrets to how the creature scavenged for food, an expert has said.

Dr Mark Witton, a palaeontologist from the University of Portsmouth, has re-examined the fragment which has been housed in the Natural History Museum in London for a century.

He believes it shows that the pterosaur was a scavenging, vulture-like creature which lived off the carcasses of dinosaurs.

His study, published in the international Public Library of Science journal, PLoS ONE, suggests that the dimensions of the beast’s skull can be reconstructed more accurately providing new insights into its feeding habits.

He said: “Istiodactylus is an exceptional creature possessing unusual, interlocking ‘cookie cutter’ teeth with razor edges.”