Smyth thinks that so few adults appear on the fossil record in this region, not only because they were more inclined to survive, but also because those who could not were not buried so quickly. Carcasses would float everywhere on the water from days to weeks. While they were bothered, parts would fall until the bottom of the lagoon. Young people were small enough to be swept under and quickly buried by sediments that would retain them.
Cause of death
The humerus fractures found in Lucky I and Lucky II were especially important because injuries for the front legs of the existing flying vertebrate animals are most common. The humerus attaches the wing to the body and carries the most flight voltage, making it more susceptible to trauma. Most humerus fractures take place during the flight instead of being the result of a sudden impact with a tree or cliff. And these fractures were the only skeletrauma that was seen in one of the Juvenile Pterosaurus samples of Solnhofen.
Proof that suggests that the injuries to the two young pterosaurs took place before death comprises the relocation of bones while they were still in the flight (something recognizable by storm -dead of existing birds and bats) and the smooth edges of the break, which take place in lifetime, as opposed to the skilled edges of postmortembreuk. There were also no visible signs of healing.
Storms had disproportionately influence on flying beings in Solnhofen, which were often knocked down by intense winds. Many of Solnhofen's fossilized vertebrates were pterosaurs and other winged species such as bird prospective Arachaeopteryx. Flying invertebrates were also doomed.
Even invertebrated sea and fish were threatened by storm conditions, which cried the lagoons and brought deep water with higher salt levels and low oxygen to the surface. Everything that fell on the bottom was exceptionally stored because of the same conditions, which were too hard for scavengers and paused decomposition. Mud raised by the storms also helped with the fossilization process by quickly covering these organisms and providing further protection against the elements.
“The same storm events that are responsible for the funeral of these people, also transported the pterosaurs to the lagoon and were probably the primary cause of their injury and death,” Smyth concluded.
Although Lucky I and Lucky II were definitely bad luck, the excellent preservation of their skeletons that show how they died, researchers finally enabled a matter of being resolved cold for more than one hundred thousand years.
Current Biology, 2025. DOI: 10.1016/J.Cub.2025.08.006
