Fossil of largest Jurassic pterosaur found on Skye

Much more of the skeleton is evident in the excavated block

The world's largest Jurassic pterosaur - a 170-million-year-old winged reptile - has been found protruding from the rocks of the Isle of Skye.

PhD student Amelia Penny spotted its sharp-toothed jaw in a layer of ancient limestone on Skye's coast.

That initial discovery, in 2017, has now been followed up with detailed examination of the fossil skeleton.

Those studies, published in the journal Current Biology, show the flying lizard had a 2.5m (8ft) wingspan.

Diagram of the pterosaur skeleton.

The research, led by PhD student Natalia Jagielska, also revealed the creature was a species new to science.

It has now been given the Gaelic name Dearc sgiathanach (pronounced Jark Ski-an-Ach), in honour of the Isle of Skye.

PhD student Amelia Penny points to the fossil she discovered.

Researchers from the Hunterian Museum, in Glasgow, and the Staffin Museum, on Skye, had to extract the rock slab entombing the fossil - a painstaking process and noisy process racing the incoming tide - and bring it to the University of Edinburgh.

But it was well worth the effort.

"Dearc is a fantastic example of why palaeontology will never cease to be astounding," Ms Jagielska said.

"Pterosaur fossils as complete as this are very rare.

An artist's impression of Dearch.

Fossil of huge Jurassic flying lizard found in UK

"As flying animals, their bones are really light, just like today's birds.

"That makes them incredibly fragile and so they don't usually preserve as fossils."

The fossil had to be cut out of the ancient rock.

The remarkable condition and completeness of this specimen - particularly the detail preserved in its skull - has already allowed scientists from the universities of Edinburgh and St Andrews and National Museums Scotland, where the fossil will be displayed and studied further, to conclude Dearc had good eyesight.

"We look forward to studying Dearc in greater detail to discover more about how it lived and its behaviour," Ms Jagielska added.

The pterosaur would have flown the Skye skies 170 million years ago

Prof Steve Brusatte, of the University of Edinburgh, who was leading the Isle of Skye field trip, called it "a superlative Scottish fossil".

"The preservation is amazing, far beyond any pterosaur ever found in Scotland and probably the best British skeleton found since the days of [fossil hunter] Mary Anning in the early 1800s," he said.

And its size "tells us that pterosaurs got larger much earlier than we thought, long before the Cretaceous period when they were competing with birds, and that's hugely significant".