Why Pterosaurs Were the Weirdest Wonders on Wings (NatGeo)
By Richard Conniff
Photographs by Robert Clark
This story appears in the November 2017 issue of National Geographic magazine.
Most people respond to the word ‘pterosaurs’ with a puzzled expression, until you add, ‘like pterodactyls.’
That’s the common name given to the first pterosaur discovered in the 18th century. Scientists have since described more than 200 pterosaur species, but popular notions about pterosaurs—the winged dragons that ruled Mesozoic skies for 162 million years—have remained stuck. We invariably imagine them as pointy-headed, leather-winged, clumsily aerial reptilians, with murderous proclivities.
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But a rush of fossil discoveries has brought to light surprising new pterosaur shapes, sizes, and behaviors. Some paleontologists now suspect that hundreds of pterosaur species may have lived at any one time, dividing up habitats much as modern birds do. Their world included monsters like Quetzalcoatlus northropi, one of the largest flying animals yet discovered, nearly as tall as a giraffe, with a 35-foot wingspan and a likely penchant for picking off baby dinosaurs. But it also included pterosaurs the size of sparrows that flitted through primeval forests and may have fed on insects, large pterosaurs that stayed on the wing across oceans for days at a time like albatrosses, and pterosaurs that stood in briny shallows and filter fed like pink flamingos.
Among the most exciting finds is an assortment of fossilized pterosaur eggs. Scans of intact eggs have revealed the world of embryos inside the shell and helped explain how the hatchlings developed. One egg even turned up in the oviduct of a Darwinopterus pterosaur from China, along with another egg apparently pushed out by the impact that killed her. “Mrs. T” (for Mrs. Pterosaur) thus became the first pterosaur indisputably identified by sex. Because she lacked a head crest, she provided the first solid evidence that for some male pterosaurs, as for some modern birds, big, brightly colored crests probably functioned as a sexual display device. These discoveries have given pterosaurs a vivid new life as real animals. They’ve also given pterosaur researchers an almost insatiable appetite for more.
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more: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/11/pterosaurs-weirdest-wonders-on-wings/
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