Its finally out! Please Welcome Mirasaura! A new drepanosaur from the Middle Triassic of France. Gabriel Ugueto made the press artwork but I couldn't hold back and had to do my own interpretation during break time =)
This tiny guy not only shows strucutres that are basically the same as in Longisquama, it shows that Longissquama was likewise a drepanosaur and that reptiles experimented with beta keratin structures way earlier than we thought so far.
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Back in 1939, fossil collector Louis Grauvogel discovered a couple of reptile fossils in Middle Triassic-aged deposits (~247 million years old) in eastern France. A large preserved structure was noted above the animal's back, but for many years it was interpreted as an unrelated fish fin, insect wing, or plant frond.
It was only when the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart acquired the specimens in 2019 that they were recognized as representing something very special: a long-sought-after relative of the bizarre and enigmatic Longisquama!
Mirasaura grauvogeli grew to around 30cm long (~1') and was, if anything, even stranger than its relative. It had humped shoulders, grasping limbs, and a bird-like head with large forward-facing eyes and a long pointed snout that was toothless at the front, probably used to probe for small invertebrates in cracks and crevices.
But most strikingly it had up to 20 tall structures overlapping along its back to form a sail-like crest. Although they were superficially feather-like in shape with preserved melanosomes that resemble those of birds, structurally they weren't feathers at all – but they also weren't modified scales. Instead these appear to have been an entirely novel type of skin appendage, made up of continuous sheets with a midline shaft and a corrugated texture.
The crest was probably used for visual display, and 80 additional fossils of isolated crest structures suggest they were regularly shed and regrown.
Along with Longisquama, Mirasaura appears to have been an early member of the drepanosaur lineage – a group of wonderfully weird tamandua-like reptiles whose evolutionary relationships are still disputed, with different studies currently recovering them as either a unique early offshoot of the diapsids or as archosauromorphs.
(Interestingly, a specimen of Drepanosaurus reportedly preserves some soft tissue on its back that may also be one of these strange new crest structures. Drepanosaurs just keep on getting weirder and weirder and I love them.)
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References:
Renesto, Silvo, et al. The taxonomy and paleobiology of the Late Triassic (Carnian-Norian: Adamanian-Apachean) drepnosaurs (Diapsida: Archosauromorpha: Drepanosauromorpha): Bulletin 46. Vol. 46. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, 2010. https://nmdigital.unm.edu/digital/collection/bulletins/id/1261/
Spiekman, Stephan NF, et al. "Triassic diapsid shows early diversification of skin appendages in reptiles." Nature (2025): 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09167-9
Wikipedia contributors. “Mirasaura” Wikipedia, 27 Jul. 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirasaura
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Jars are a large intelligent species of Progenitor from the planet Gyges. They grow to be about 16 to 20 feet long from beak to tail-claw, though their neck is usually folded in like that of a heron They have a large claw at the end of their muscular tail, which they use to climb and balance on. They have large forelimbs and smaller rear limbs. Their rear limbs have 3 front digits and 2 back digits, with small claws that retract into sheaths. Their front limbs have 5 digits arranged into a thumb with a large claw, 3 fingers with small claws, and a massive middle finger with a massive claw. The claws on the front limbs do not have sheaths, but do fold backwards to keep them off of the ground when not in use. Both the front and back limbs are effective at manipulating objects and for locomotion, though the rear limbs are slightly more dextrous and the front limbs are longer and stronger. Jars use their rear limbs for precise locomotion such as walking short distances, and use their front limbs to run and climb. Jars have a long neck concealed within a baggy throat with a voluminous crop. Their skin comes in varying shades of white, gray, beige, tan, orange, red, and brown, but their head and chest will turn dark red or black when they are angry. Jars have large eyes and wide mouths. Their jaws have an additional horizontal hinge that allows them to wide or narrow their mouth and head. This feature likely evolved to help capture prey in tight spaces, but also features in their facial expressions. Jars have slits in their arms, legs, and shoulders which are used for thermoregulation, opening when the Jar is hot, and closing when it is cold.
