Khouribga Basin Pterosaurs stock image

The azhdarchid Phosphatodraco looks to the setting sun over the Atlantic Ocean. She can see the open ocean aerial fishing pteranodontid Tethydraco to her left. To the right, a group of the large nyctosaurid Barbaridactylus head out to sea. Closer to the wave tops, a flock of the near shore plunge-diving nyctosaurid Alcione hunt the bounty of the rising tide.  

Fossils of a diverse pterosaur fauna have been discovered at the Khouribga phosphate mines in Morocco. These pterosaurs lived in the final one million years of the Mesozoic--the Age of Reptiles--and show that pterosaurs maintained high diversity until the Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction.

Illustration by Rudolf Hima