Which dinosaurs flew

Much of the increase in their flight efficiency was down to their expanding wingspan, Baker said. But even considering the improvements associated with larger size, Baker said their flight efficiency still increased over time by more than 50 percent. The exceptions were among the giants of the pterosaur family, the azhdarchids.

Previous research has suggested that these huge animals spent more time on the ground than other pterosaurs, and the authors found that although they could fly, their performance in the air did not increase over time. In a second paper also published in Nature, researchers from the Universities of Leicester and Birmingham analysed the microscopic scratches and pits on the fossilised teeth of these flying predators to determine what they ate and how their diets changed over time.

The study looked at 17 species of pterosaur that lived between and 94 million years ago and compared the marks on their teeth to modern crocodilians and monitor lizards. It found that while the earliest pterosaurs consumed mostly invertebrates, later species had evolved into meat and fish eaters. Its name is an apt description of what its flying apparatus the wings were supported by one large finger.

The next animal in this list is the Rhamphorhynchus that live during the late period of the Jurassic. This crest made of a protein called keratin could change color in order to become more prominent during mating season. The next animal on this list is the Haopterus , one of the few flying reptiles that lived in Asia during the late Cretaceous period.

Numerous fossils of Haopterus have discovered China, Liaoning Province. Last but not the least, is the Quetzalcoatlus that lived in North America during the late Cretaceous period. Considered as one of the largest flying animals of all time, the Quetzalcoatlus had an average wingspan of 52 feet 15 meters!

To learn more about pterosaurs, you can visit this site. On the other hand, birds are viewed to have directly descended from dinosaurs specifically from the theropod group during the Mesozoic Era.

Like the Archeopteryx, the Microraptor also provides the evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds. Discovered in the forests of China, the Microraptor like the Archeopteryx provides an important evidence to the evolution of birds and dinosaurs. With such significant evidence of the distinct evolutionary relationships of dinosaurs with birds and dinosaurs with birds, there is absolutely no more reason to keep the confusion.

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Meiosis Chromosome Vs. It is here that you can start to understand how dinosaurs and flying reptiles are related. In Figure 1, the classification of Archosaurs and the two branched clades of Dinosauromorpha and Pterosauromorpha are shown. The Dinosauromorpha clade has all the dinosaurs grouped , and the Pterosuromorpha clade has grouped all the flying reptiles. Interestingly, modern-day birds are in the clade of Dinosauromorpha and, as such, closely related to dinosaurs Source.

On the basis of their size, ancestry, and features, the pterosaurs are generally divided into two main groups. The first type is called basal pterosaurs and second, later pterosaurs or just pterosaurs. We can say that the basal pterosaurs were the ancestors of later pterosaurs. Modern classification with cladograms also keeps this grouping as all are classified under Pterosauria, and the clades up to Pterodactyloidea are basal.

Although most of them had toothed jaws and snouts, it is not the main differentiator between the later Pterosaurs. The wingspan and larger brain cavity scientists think this indicates advanced flying ability were key differences between basal and later pterosaurs.

The later Pterosaurs are grouped under two clade branches, the Archaeopterodactyloidea and Eupterodactyloidea. From a classification perspective, they are also known as pterodactyloid. In Figure 3, a simplified clade diagram is shown outlining the Archaeopterodactyloidea and Eupterodactyloidea clades.

The later pterosaurs were noticeably larger, had more variety in the crest length, height, or shape , and the wingspans were much larger as well, which enabled gliding for long distances. In terms of the skull differences, the snouts were more elongated longer , and there were some without teeth. These flying reptiles lived during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, again going extinct at the end of the Cretaceous. As mentioned earlier, there have been about fossil discoveries of flying reptiles since the 18th century.

In Table 1, we have a list of seven basal pterosaurs. In the first column is the name, in the second column, a description of identifying features or characteristics and the time period it lived.

Lastly, I list where the fossils of the flying reptile were found. The pterosaurs had marked their presence for the first time about million years ago in the Mesozoic era at the late Triassic period, along with dinosaurs. During that time, they had roamed the earth for more than million years, and they disappeared from the earth about 66 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period.

One of the striking features of pterosaurs is their wingspan. The largest pterosaurs had huge wingspans and were designed for gliding long distances. However, there was also a large variation in the shape of the skull and the crest. So, in the following table, I have arranged the different wingspans of Pterosaur. As there are many fossils found and classified, this is just a tiny snapshot, but it gives you a glimpse that there was just about every size of flying dinosaur types imaginable Source.

At first, it was thought that the pterosaurs could not have an active flight like modern-day birds. They only flew by gliding in the air. Later, with skeleton studies of flying reptiles, they had a big brain used for complex behaviors during flight, well-developed optic lobes, very thin hollow bones air-filled , and, additionally, they possessed many crests on their bones and a breastbone attached with flight muscles.

These studies suggest that they had an active flight mechanism flapping wings to generate flight Source. Based on the fossils found, basal pterosaurs had jaws filled densely with teeth, and their tails were quite long.

One odd feature is that they had their hind legs attached with wide wings membranes. These flying reptiles looked awkward standing on the ground due to their posture.