An international research team from the United States and China has found fossils from the earliest known ancestor of Earth's great flying reptiles.

Working from remains unearthed in northwest China, researchers Brian Andres, a USF paleontologist, James Clark of the George Washington University Columbian College of Arts and Sciences and Xu Xing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, identified rather smallish creature with a wingspan of about 4.5 feet that crossed the inland skies approximately 163 million years ago.

The new pterosaur species has been dubbed Kryptodrakon progenitor, according to a new study published online Thursday in the journal Current Biology.

After analyzing the partial skeleton of the ancient animal, the scientific team realized it was the first discovered pterosaur -- the earliest vertebrates known to have evolved powered flight -- to show the characteristics of the Pterodactyloidea, otherwise known more simply as pterodactyls, which grew into the dominant winged creatures of the prehistoric world.

"This finding represents the earliest and most primitive pterodactyloid pterosaur, a flying reptile in a highly specialized group that includes the largest flying organisms," Chris Liu, program director in the National Science Foundation's Division of Earth Sciences, said in a news release. "The research has extended the fossil record of pterodactyloids by at least five million years to the Middle-Upper Jurassic boundary about 163 million years ago."

The study explains the Kryptodrakon progenitor originated, lived and evolved in overland environments, as opposed to marine environments, where other specimens have been found.

As such, the Kryptodrakon progenitor habitat was most likely a flood plain, Andres said, and evidence suggests as the pterosaur evolved, its wings changed from being narrow and well-suited for marine environs, to being broader and a better design for navigating land environments.

The discovery provides new insights into the development of pterodactyloids, Andres said.

"He (Kryptodrakon progenitor) fills in a very important gap in the history of pterosaurs," said Andres. "With him, they could walk and fly in whole new ways."

The remains that became the focus of the study were actually discovered in a mudstone of the Shishugou Formation located in northwest China, during an expedition led by Xu and Clark when Andres was a graduate student with Clark at GWU.

The Kryptodrakon progenitor was found about 115 feet below an ash bed that dated back more than 161 million years.

Housed at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Beijing, China, the specimen's name was inspired from Krypto, which means hidden, and drakon, or, serpent, a nod to the martial arts flick "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," which was filmed near the site where the species was discovered. Then, the creature's second name, progenitor, of course means ancestral or first-born, a reference to its position as the earliest known pterodactyloid, Andres said.