After a century of being locked inside a block of stone, the evolutionary secrets of a 230 million-year-old reptile have been revealed.
The fossil was examined using powerful X-ray scans.
They created the first full skeleton reconstruction of the creature.
Scientists say this reptile is the descendant of the great, winged pterodactyl.
"We didn't know how much we were missing until we did the scans," Dr. Davide Foffa said.
A collection of fossils from the Triassic period were unearthed in Lossiemouth in the 1900's.
Scotland was mostly a desert in the supercontinent Pangea.
The Natural History Museum in London, where the majority of the Elgin collection is held, collaborated with Dr Foffa and his colleagues to study seven fragile sandstone-entombed specimen of Scleromochlus.
It was hard to draw useful information from the fossils. The palaeontologist was interested in them because they are about 10 million years old before the first fossils of pterosaurs were found.
It's hard to understand where the first pterosaurs came from because they are already winged.
The shape of the jaw and upper thigh bone revealed by the X-ray scans allowed the scientists to place Scleromochlus on the pterosaur family tree.
Dr Foffa was the first to look at the details.
This animal gives a lot of information about the early days of pterosaurs.
The first animals with bones to start flying were the pterosaurs.
Prof Steve Brusatte from the University of Edinburgh was involved in the study and described them asbizarre.
He told the news that it has been a mystery what type of animals they evolved from.
Pterosaurs evolved from tiny, fast- running, ground- living animals, which raced around on their toes like a ballerina, that were so humble that you could hold one in.
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