Smyth thinks that so few adults appear on the fossil file of this region not only because they were more likely to survive, but also because those who could not be buried so quickly. Carcasses floated on everyday water for weeks. As they decompose, the pieces would fall at the bottom of the lagoon. The juveniles were small enough to be swept and buried quickly by sediments that would preserve them.
Cause of death
The humerus fractures found in Lucky I and Lucky II were particularly significant because the injuries of the advantages are the most common among existing flying vertebrates. The humerus ties the wing to the body and wears most flight constraints, which makes it more subject to trauma. Most humerus fractures occur in flight rather than being the result of a sudden impact with a tree or a cliff. And these fractures were the only skeletal trauma observed in one of the Solnhofen juvenile pterosaur specimens.
Proofs suggesting that the injuries to the two emerging pterosaurs occurred before death includes the displacement of the bones while they were still in flight (something recognizable by the time death of existing birds and bats) and the smooth edges of the break, which occurs in life, as opposed to the raging edges of post-mortem breaks. There were also no visible signs of healing.
Storms have disproportionately affected flying creatures in Solnhofen, which have often been shot by intense winds. Many fossilized vertebrates of Solnhofen were pterosaurs and other winged species such as the ancestor of birds Arachaeopteryx. The flying invertebrates were also condemned.
Even marine invertebrates and fish were threatened by storm conditions, which produced the lagoons and brought deep waters with higher salt levels and low oxygen on the surface. Everything that flowed at the bottom was exceptionally preserved due to these same conditions, which were too hard for scavengers and breakdown in break. The mud demonstrated by storms has also helped the fossilization process by quickly covering these organizations and offering more in -depth protection against the elements.
“The same storm events responsible for the burial of these people also transported the pterosaurs to the lagoon basins and were probably the main cause of their injury and their death,” concluded Smyth.
Although Lucky I and Lucky II were decidedly unlucky, the exquisite preservation of their skeletons which shows how they died finally allowed researchers to resolve a case that has been cold for more than a hundred thousand years.
Current biology, 2025. DOI: 10.1016 / J.Cub.2025.08.006
