Most pterosaur remains come from species that lived near the ocean or sea. Many Pterodactylus fossils are preserved in Bavaria, Germany. During the Jurassic period, the region was a swampy wetland at the edge of an ancient sea. Organisms that washed into the wetland became buried in the mud. This mud slowly hardened into limestone and the bones fossilized.
While Pterodactyls are not classified as dinosaurs, they still have a lot in common with other prehistoric predators, and we still have much to learn about them. The rarity of fossils leaves major gaps in our knowledge about pterosaurs. How did they evolve flight? Why did they vanish? What exactly did they look like? How to Fold a Paper T. Get a round up of our latest activities and ideas delivered straight to your inbox so you don't miss a thing!
Follow us on social media for even more science fun including fun facts, games, behind-the-scenes photos, and more! On the one side are the dinosaurs and their closest relatives, and on the other are pterosaurs and animals more closely related to them than dinosaurs. Both pterosaurs and dinosaurs are distinct groups that shared a common ancestor, and so to call a pterosaur a dinosaur is to ignore this major divergence in the evolution of both groups. A pterosaur is no more a dinosaur than a goldfish is a shark.
There is no reason for news sources to keep applying the word "dinosaur" to pterosaurs. We have known about this distinction for a long time, and I bet that your average year old paleo fan would know not confuse the groups. With even just a tiny bit of an evolutionary perspective, the distinction becomes clear. To learn more about pterosaurs, visit Pterosaur.
Some pterosaurs even appear to have had a saillike crest made up of a membrane sheet connecting two large bones on the head. Over the years, scientists have proposed many possible purposes for these crests, including that they were used for heat regulation or to serve as rudders during flight. What seems most likely is that the crests were used for sexual selection, Hone and his colleagues argued in a study in the journal Lethaia. There are several lines of evidence that support this function of the crests, Hone explained, perhaps most notably that juveniles, which look like miniature versions of adult pterosaurs, don't have crests, suggesting the structures are used for something that is only relevant to adults, such as mating.
Pterosaurs were carnivores, though some may have occasionally ate fruits, Hone said. What the reptiles ate depended on where they lived — some species spent their lives around water, while others were more terrestrial. Terrestrial pterosaurs ate carcasses, baby dinosaurs, lizards, eggs, insects and various other animals.
Water-loving pterosaurs ate a variety of marine life, including fish, squid, crab and other shellfish. In , Hone sought to learn more about the lives of marine pterosaurs. With these animals, juveniles dominate the fossil record, Hone said. This is odd because young animals are generally those that are targeted by predators, preventing them from becoming part of the fossil record. One hypothesis to explain this strange occurrence is that the juvenile pterosaurs often died by drowning instead of being eaten.
To test this, Hone and his colleague Donald Henderson modeled how well could pterosaurs float on water like ducks.
They found that pterosaurs floated well, but they had poor floating postures, in which their heads rested very close to the water, if not on the water. This suggests that aquatic pterosaurs wouldn't spend much time on the water's surface and would launch into the air shortly after diving for food to avoid drowning. However, young pterosaurs that don't yet have strong muscles or are still learning to fly would have more difficulties launching back into the air from a dive, possibly resulting in drowning, Hone said.
Precambrian: Facts About the Beginning of Time. Mesozoic Era: Age of the Dinosaurs.
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