Near the end of the age of dinosaurs, hulking lizards such as Tyrannosaurus rex ruled the Earth, while immense flying reptiles known as pterosaurs held dominion over the skies. But to the surprise of paleontologists, it seems one winged beast of the Late Cretaceous was thinking small.

A pterosaur that lived roughly 70 to 85 million years ago stood only as tall as a cat and had a wingspan just slightly wider than that of a great horned owl, according to the team that found the newly described fossil. (By contrast, the biggest known flying seabird had a 21-foot wingspan.)

Every other known pterosaur of the day was super-sized, leading to the proposal that birds pushed aside smaller aerial reptiles during