Throughout the many millions of years that the likes of Triceratops, T. rex and Brontosaurus dominated the land, pterosaurs ruled the skies.
These winged reptiles were the first vertebrates to evolve powered flight and include the biggest flying vertebrates ever to have existed, with wingspans exceeding 10m. Lift was provided not by feathers, but by a membrane of skin stretched between the ankles and elongated fourth fingers. Pterosaurs are widely referred to as flying dinosaurs. But they aren’t dinosaurs for the same reason crocodiles aren’t.
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All three belong to a group called the archosaurs, which split off from other reptilian lineages about 250 million years ago. Dinosaurs, pterosaurs and crocodilians then went their own separate ways not long after that.
Pterosaurs dominated the skies until they were wiped out by the infamous meteor, 66 million years ago. Curiously, the meteor is more commonly credited with finishing off the dinosaurs, but this isn’t strictly true. One dinosaur lineage did survive, and it gave rise to modern birds – proper flying dinosaurs.
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