Sharovipteryx

We did quite a bit of cleaning yesterday. I've started working on sanding the 214 new boxes and got a little work in on the dragon.

Art

Today

sand boxes

work on dragon

Animal

picture by Dmitry Bogdanov

In the early Triassic around the area of Kyrgyzstan there was a strange gliding reptile (Sharovipteryx mirabilis) that had it's main gliding membranes along it's back legs. It is thought by some that Sharovipteryx was bipedal and would launch into a glide from a running start, others think it was arboreal and launched itself from trees. It is the oldest know animal to have a gliding membrane attached to it's limbs and the only known animal to have it's primary gliding membrane on it's hind limbs. The species is known from only one fossil found in the Osh Region of Kyrgyzstan in 1971 which is a little crumbled in the front leading to some debate as to how membranes may have been attached in it's front area.

A picture of the fossil