Fossil reveals Cretaceous drama of a croc attack on a flying reptile

About 76 million years ago, a juvenile of one of the largest flying creatures in Earth’s history, called Cryodrakon boreas, walked along a riverbank on a lush coastal plain and lowered its toothless beak to take a drink, unaware of danger lurking at the water’s edge. Suddenly, a large croc surged out of the water in an ambush and sank its teeth into the Cryodrakon’s neck.That was life – and death – in the Cretaceous Period in the Canadian province of Alberta. Scientists have unearthed in the badlands of Alberta’s Dinosaur Provincial Park the fossilized neck bone of a young Cryodrakon, a type of flying reptile called a pterosaur, that may have died in just such a scenario.