What did a pterosaur look like? Do you know the physical characteristics of pterosaurs?

Pterodactyls, also known as pterosauria, are extinct reptiles with nearly 100 species. [1] Although at the same time as dinosaurs survived, pterosaurs were not dinosaurs. [2] The Greek word for "winged lizard" is an evolutionary branch of flying reptiles.

It lived from the Late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous, about 210 million years ago to 65 million years ago. Pterodactyls were the first vertebrates to fly, and the wings of pterosaurs were derived from the membrane located between the sides of the body and the four wing phalanges. Earlier species had long, toothy jaws, and long tails; Later species have significantly shortened tails and lack teeth.

Pterodactyls ranged greatly in size, from the small forest pterosaur as a bird, to the largest flying creatures ever seen on Earth, such as the Aeolus pterosaur and the hatezgow pterosaur, with a wingspan of more than 12 meters, teeth 10 centimeters long, and a huge pointed beak.

Scientific name in Chinese. Pterosaur.

Latin scientific name. quetzalcoatlus northropi

Nickname. Pterodactyl.

World. Animal kingdom.

Door. Chordata.

Fast. Navigation.

Exterior features. Habits.

Growth and reproduction. Habitat.

Subspecies differentiation. Discovery process.

Research Progress. Population evolution.

Briefly. Flying reptiles. Commonly known as the Wyvern.

The largest pterosaurs could reach 6 8 m when their wings were spread. There are two fossils found in China: one is in the Karamay region of Dzungaria, Xinjiang, called Dzungar dragon, with two wings open and reaching; One is in the coastal sea of Zhejiang, called Linhai Pterodactyl.

Both of these are produced in Cretaceous (65 million years ago) strata. [3]

Pterosaur. A glance of an ancient reptile. It's a reptile that is moving into the air.

The head is long, the neck is long, the eyes are large, and the mouth is pointed and long. There is a cortical membrane between the fourth finger of the forelimb and the side of the body, which allows it to fly. It inhabits the seaside and lake, and feeds on fish.

It can be divided into beak-billed dragons, pterosaurs and Dzungar pterosaurs. It was widely distributed all over the world during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. [4]

Exterior features. Pterodactyls were larger than other pterosaurs, they had almost no teeth, while other pterosaurs did. A typical pterosaur had a shorter tail than other pterosaurs and had a crest on its head.

Some pterosaurs were the size of the average bird, while others could grow as large as small airplanes, with the largest pterosaurs having wings of thirty-nine feet (12 m).

Letia pterosaur (illustrated by Zhao Chuang).

The wing membrane structure that supported the flight of pterosaurs was completely different from the wing structures of vertebrates, birds, and bats that were able to fly later. Pterodactyls formed a wing surface from the epithelium, a membrane of muscles, and other soft tissues that stretched from the thorax to the extremely long fourth finger. The membrane is supported by other phalanges.

The membrane of the pterosaur was attached to only one elongated finger (the 4th finger) and extended posteriorly along the body side to the knee; There is an additional epithelial membrane between the neck and the "arm". The front three phalanges are claw-shaped, slender hooks. Its membranes appear to be fully adapted to flight and gliding, but are not as flexible and fragile as the membranes of bats or the wings of birds.

The body is sturdy, the hind legs are long and thin, and its structure.

The appearance of the pterosaur is characterized by a pair of very large wings, and the hind limbs of the pterosaur are developed, the forelimbs are relatively short, the neck of the pterosaur is also very long, and the dragon also has the ability to fly.

I know, I've watched TV shows about the characteristics of dinosaurs, and this pterosaur was very fast.

I know that pterosaurs are as nimble as birds and have wings, which is why they can fly.

Typical shape features of the wing hand are:Pterodactyls had shorter tails than other pterosaurs and had a crest on their heads. Some pterosaurs were the size of ordinary birds, while others could be as big as the Leetitic pterosaur (Zhao Chuang) airplane, and the largest pterosaur had a wing length of 39 feet (12 m).

Pterodactyls lived in the Cretaceous period, and their skeletons were found in Europe. Pterodactyl was not very large, its wings were only about 22 centimeters. But the wings of the Aeolian pterosaur were 12 meters long, the size of a bus.

American scientists have discovered a kind of pterosaur, its wings are more than 15 meters long, many flying ornithischian dragons are somewhat like today's bats, they seem to use a pair of hands to support huge wings, so they have wings and sharp claws have become a major feature of them.

It has been suggested that later birds evolved from them. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America published a joint research by Wang Xiaolin, Zhou Zhonghe, researchers from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and two scientists from the Brazilian Academy of Sciences.

1. Originally, the ancestors of pterosaurs were reptiles on the land of jujubes, which looked a little like lizards. But it is far from lizards, and very close to dinosaurs and crocodiles. How it grew wings and learned to fly is not well understood.

2. The wings of the pterosaur are composed of Naqing muscle membrane and elastic fibers under the cover of **. On one side of the body, the other end is attached to the forelimb bone and an oddly long phalange. This oddly long bone is its fourth finger (equivalent to our ring finger); The fifth finger has degenerated and disappeared, the first.

I. The second and third fingers are also degenerate, but they still retain the front claws. It is possible to grasp things and climb rocks and cliffs.

3. But the wings of pterosaurs are not as strong as those of bats. The bat's epidermis is supported by three phalanges, while the pterosaur has only one on the edge. As a result, pterosaurs were probably only able to glide in the sky and not to fly long distances.

4. Some speculate that pterosaurs could also hang themselves upside down on tree branches or cliff edges like bats. But there are also those who believe that they are prostrate on the edge of the cliff to rest. The hind limbs of pterosaurs were very underdeveloped, and it was probably clumsy to walk on land.