Texas Pterosaur Fossil Reveals These Giant Reptiles Evolved After Travel (VIDEO)

First Posted: Dec 09, 2015 08:31 AM EST

A new species of unearthed pterosaur may be a native of Texas, but it's strikingly similar to an English species. The new findings may just tell researchers a bit more about how these creatures spread millions of years ago.

The newly-discovered 94-million-year-old species is named Cimoliopterus dunni and is strikingly similar to the English species, called Cimoliopterus cuvieri.

Pterosaur relatives from these two continents suggests that the prehistoric creatures moved between North America and England earlier in the Cretaceous, despite progressive widening of the North Atlantic Ocean during that time. Because the English and Texas cousins are different species, evolutionary divergence occurred when they moved into different locations. The scientists believe that the populations were isolated from one another about 94 million years ago.

However, the similarity between the two species implies minimal divergence time, so gene flow between North American and European populations would have been possible at some point shortly before that date.

"The Atlantic opened the supercontinent Pangaea like a zipper, separating continents and leaving animal populations isolated, so gene flow ceased and we start to see evolutionary divergence," said Timothy Myers, one of the researchers, in a news release. "Animals start to look different and you see different species on one continent versus another. Pterosaurs are a little trickier because unlike land animals they can fly and disperse across bodies of water. The later ones are pretty good flyers."

The new findings don't just show a new species. They also show a bit more about the evolution of pterosaurs.

"Pterosaurs don't necessarily need land bridges to disperse because they can cross marine barriers between emergent landmasses, effectively 'island hopping' from one continental mass to another," said Myers.

The findings are published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.