Scientists at the University of Leicester have solved a 150-million-year-old mystery surrounding the deaths of two young dinosaurs.
Just how a pair of juvenile pterosaurs, found in southern Germany's Solnhofen Limestones, had died had puzzled researchers for years.
But after examining the winged lizards' remarkably preserved remains, the Leicester team believe they have solved it.
The pair perished when a powerful tropical storm shattered their wings, sending them plummeting into an ancient lagoon where they drowned.
Analysis revealed that violent weather events in the Jurassic period claimed the lives of these creatures when they were merely days or weeks old.
Both fossils exhibited an identical pattern of damage - a clean, diagonal break in the humerus bone.
Just how the pair of juvenile pterosaurs had died had puzzled researchers for years
|UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER
The team from Leicester's Centre for Palaeobiology and Biosphere Evolution concluded that these matching fractures resulted from powerful twisting forces, consistent with extreme wind gusts rather than impact with solid objects.
The pterosaurs, belonging to the species Pterodactylus, the first pterosaur ever named, possessed wingspans measuring just under 20 centimetres.
Their delicate, hollow bone structure, though perfectly adapted for flight, made them particularly vulnerable to severe weather conditions which would have overwhelmed their limited flying capabilities as hatchlings.
Researchers dubbed the specimens Lucky and Lucky II.
After the storm sent them crashing into the lagoon, the pterosaurs sank rapidly to the seabed where fine limestone sediments, churned up by the tempest, entombed them almost immediately.
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The pterosaurs' hollow bone structure, though perfectly adapted for flight, made them particularly vulnerable to severe weather conditions
|UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER
This swift burial process preserved the skeletons in extraordinary detail, leaving them virtually intact and articulated exactly as they were at the moment of death.
The team noted that such exceptional preservation resulted directly from the storm conditions.
As such, the same violent weather which killed the creatures also created the perfect circumstances for their fossilisation in the ancient lagoon.
"Pterosaurs had incredibly lightweight skeletons. Hollow, thin-walled bones are ideal for flight but terrible for fossilisation," lead researcher Rab Smyth said.
"The odds of preserving one are already slim and finding a fossil that tells you how the animal died is even rarer."
The discovery suggests that numerous small pterosaur fossils in the region may be storm victims rather than the area's typical inhabitants.
"For centuries, scientists believed that the Solnhofen lagoon ecosystems were dominated by small pterosaurs," PhD student Mr Smyth noted.
"But we now know this view is deeply biased. Many of these pterosaurs weren't native to the lagoon at all.
"Most are inexperienced juveniles that were likely living on nearby islands that were unfortunately caught up in powerful storms."