Pterosaur Beach is the name that

paleontologists Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of foss ...

have given to an area along a long gone

lagoon A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') ...

in what is now southwestern France. The area is notable because it is the first time that the fossil footprints of a landing

pterosaur Pterosaurs (; from Greek ''pteron'' and ''sauros'', meaning "wing lizard") is an extinct clade of flying reptiles in the order, Pterosauria. They existed during most of the Mesozoic: from the Late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous (228 ...

have been discovered. The fossil footprints are approximately 140 million years old. The site has hundreds of fossilized pterosaur trackways. The discovery was made by Jean-Michel Mazin from the

University of Lyon The University of Lyon (french: Université de Lyon), located in Lyon and Saint-Étienne, France, is a center for higher education and research comprising 11 members and 24 associated institutions. The three main universities in this center are: C ...

.Fossil tracks show a pterosaur coming in for a landing
, scienceblogs.com, August 18, 2009

References

External links

First record of a pterosaur landing trackway
by Jean-Michel Mazin, Jean-Paul Billon-Bruyat, and Kevin Padian, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2009 Pterosaurs {{jurassic-stub