A Smithsonian-led team of researchers have discovered North America's oldest known pterosaur, the winged reptiles that lived alongside dinosaurs and were the first vertebrates to evolve powered flight.

Researchers were able to date the fossil of the flying reptile, a close cousin of dinosaurs, back to more than 209 million years ago.

From what the researchers were able to gather, the new species of pterosaur—dubbed Eotephradactylus mcintireae after Suzanne McIntire, the FossiLab volunteer who discovered it—was small enough to comfortably perch on a person's shoulder. It likely fed on the site's fish.