A gull-sized flying reptile has emerged from fossil-rich layers of Arizona’s Petrified Forest, revealing the earliest known pterosaur in North America. Named Eotephradactylus mcintireae, this delicate creature lived 209 million years ago and shared its ecosystem with turtles,

Paleontologists know the bone bed as PFV 393. The late fossil preparator Bill Amaral found the site in 2011 on a field trip to unearth new fossils that might provide information about the origins of organisms we see around us today,