Dearc ( ) is a genus of large-bodied rhamphorhynchine pterosaur from the Middle Jurassic Lealt Shale Formation of Scotland. The holotype, a juvenile or subadult that was still actively growing, has an estimated wingspan of 2.5 to 3 meters, making it the largest flying animal of its time. This pushes the origin of large pterosaurs back significantly, as it was previously assumed that pterosaurs did not reach greater body sizes until the short-tailed pterodactyloid lineages of the Cretaceous. The genus contains a single species, Dearc sgiathanach ( ).
Dearc ( ) is a genus of large-bodied rhamphorhynchine pterosaur from the Middle Jurassic Lealt Shale Formation of Scotland. The holotype, a juvenile or subadult that was still actively growing, has an estimated wingspan of 2.5 to 3 meters, making it the largest flying animal of its time. This pushes the origin of large pterosaurs back significantly, as it was previously assumed that pterosaurs did not reach greater body sizes until the short-tailed pterodactyloid lineages of the Cretaceous. The genus contains a single species, Dearc sgiathanach ( ).
==Discovery and naming== The holotype of Dearc, NMS G.2021.6.1-4, was found in 2017 by Amelia Penny in the Lealt Shale Formation and consists of a three-dimensionally preserved skeleton preserved in articulation in a slab of limestone (separated into four pieces for preparation). The specimen preserves most of the body with the exception of the end of the tail, most of the hindlimbs, parts of the wing and the very tip of the beak. The specimen was found on the east coast of the peninsula of Trotternish, part of the Isle of Skye in north-west Scotland, and the rock slab removed to the University of Edinburgh. The fossil was prepared by Nigel Larkin. It is to be displayed by National Museums Scotland.
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).