Sordes Pronunciation

Fun Facts

• ✓The fuzzy filaments preserved on Sordes fossils, called pycnofibers, were described in a landmark 1994 paper by Sharov and later studied by Alexander Kellner and Dino Campos, fundamentally changing how scientists illustrate all pterosaurs.
• ✓Sordes lived in what is now Kazakhstan around 154.8 million years ago, in a warm subtropical environment dotted with lakes and forests that looked nothing like modern Central Asia.
• ✓The name Sordes pilosus, meaning 'hairy filth' in Latin, was chosen partly as a nod to how the fossil looked when first extracted from the rock, covered in a dark fuzzy coating of preserved soft tissue.
• ✓Sordes had a wingspan of only about 60 centimeters, making it roughly the same size as a modern European starling, yet it was a true flying reptile related to the giant pterosaurs that would evolve tens of millions of years later.
• ✓The wing membrane of Sordes extended all the way to the ankles, meaning its hind legs were partially incorporated into the wing, a feature confirmed by exquisite soft-tissue preservation in the Karabastau fossils that is extremely rare in the pterosaur fossil record.