The pursuit of becoming a world-first fossil is one of dogged determination. The majority of life on Earth doesn’t get preserved, so you’ve got to die just right, bathed in just the right conditions . For one filter-feeding pterosaur, that meant spending an eternity encased in vomit. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

Yes, for the first time ever, an extinct species has been described locked inside a regurgitalite – the scientific name given to fossilized vomit . It’s a world-first in more ways than one, also being the first filter-feeding pterosaur described from the tropics. The regurgitalite was retrieved from the Romualdo Formation in Northeast Brazil’s Araripe basin, home to the Kariri people.

The new-to-scie

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