Why wasn t pterosaurs a type of dinosaur? Why did a large pterosaur fly in the air?

Updated on science 2024-07-25
20 answers
  1. Anonymous users2024-02-13

    Pterodactyls do not belong to dinosaurs and can actually be defined directly from the evolutionary process or biology, one is from the point of view of the evolutionary process, the whole evolutionary tree of dinosaurs and pterosaurs can be traced back to a **, that is, some kind of crawl, because the skull had a double-hole structure, which is a good indication that pterosaurs were close relatives of dinosaurs. However, the body structure of pterosaurs was completely different from that of dinosaurs. The fifth finger of pterosaurs is vestigial, the fourth finger is elongated, and the wing membrane appears between the legs and the fingers, while dinosaurs do not have these characteristics.

    Also, since they belong to different categories, they both came from ornithischian main dragons but later split into two species, so pterosaurs and dinosaurs were not subordinate. The international definition of dinosaur also indicates that it was a reptile with hind limbs that could walk upright, while pterosaurs could not walk upright. These different body structures also make it impossible for them to be divided into the same species, and according to the development of the evolutionary tree, two categories evolved directly in the classification of the ornithischian main dragon, one was the false crocodile, which later evolved into the modern crocodile, and the other was the ornithischian metatarsal, which was divided into pterosaurs and dinosaurs, so the two belonged to a parallel species relationship, not a subordinate relationship of who belonged to whom.

    The main reason why pterosaurs fly is that they produce wings. The wings of a pterosaur are made up of a flying membrane. The flying membrane is supported by the arm bones, the long wing fingers, and the wing bones.

    The front end is pointed and thin. This shape is very good for gliding. In addition, the structure of the sternum and shoulder joints of the pterosaur facilitates the attachment of muscles, and the strong muscles allow it to be strongly supported when flying.

    The structure of the sternum and shoulder joints of pterosaurs facilitates the attachment of muscles, and the strong muscles give them strong support during flight.

    The bones that supported the wings of the pterosaur were hollow, which not only had high strength, but also reduced weight. In addition, some pterosaurs were covered, with thermal insulation. As a result, almost all pterosaur researchers agree that pterosaurs were most likely homeothermic animals.

    Large pterosaurs can fly slowly like birds, medium pterosaurs are similar to seagulls, and small pterosaurs are almost as agile as small birds, so it can be seen that pterosaurs not only have different sizes and shapes, but also have their own flight styles.

  2. Anonymous users2024-02-12

    Because pterosaurs could fly, their body structure is very different from that of dinosaurs, and they are flying reptiles. Because pterosaurs had wings, its wings were so large that it could fly with a wave of its wings.

  3. Anonymous users2024-02-11

    I think pterosaurs are a type of dinosaur; So they can fly in the air because they have the ability to fly, even if they are relatively long, but they can also fly freely in the air.

  4. Anonymous users2024-02-10

    Because strictly speaking, pterosaurs were supposed to return to birds, and because pterosaurs had a large wingspan, they could fly by gliding.

  5. Anonymous users2024-02-09

    Pterodactyls were not dinosaurs.

    Pterodactyls are a class of flying reptiles that belong to the order Pterodactyls taxonomy. Dinosaurs, on the other hand, are a class of reptiles that can walk upright on land on all fours or two hind limbs, and belong to the general order of dinosaurs. Although pterosaurs lived in the same era as dinosaurs, pterosaurs were not dinosaurs.

    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.

  6. Anonymous users2024-02-08

    No, he is a close relative of a dinosaur, but not a dinosaur. Lived from the Early Triassic to the Late Cretaceous. There are many branches of this race, and although they are all related to dinosaurs, they are not one of the dinosaurs.

  7. Anonymous users2024-02-07

    Because pterosaurs and dinosaurs belong to two branches that evolved from the same ancestor, there is no such thing as who belonged to whom.

    There are generally two definitions of groups in paleontology, both based on evolutionary trees and based on morphological features. For dinosaurs (including birds today), the evolutionary-tree-based definition is likely to be "the common ancestor of Triceratops and modern birds and all their descendants", which is equivalent to selecting two leaves on a tree that traces back to the earliest fork point (common ancestor) at the root.

    Pterodactyls were not dinosaurs because their position on the evolutionary tree was not defined as ".The common ancestor of Triceratops and modern birds and all their descendants".

    Evolution occurs according to the binary tree structureShared derived characters synaptic morphology can be traced back to a common ancestor and not in an earlier ancestor or other subsidiary branches. The reconstruction of the evolutionary tree uses only normal derivatives.

    Based on these assumptions, we can better understand why we have wings or why we can fly is not a common derivation, because the anatomy of bird wings and pterosaur wings is very different and has different origins. According to the evolutionary tree reconstructed by common derivation, the common ancestor of pterosaurs and dinosaurs was earlier than all dinosaurs, so pterosaurs were not dinosaurs.

  8. Anonymous users2024-02-06

    This may be because pterosaurs belong to birds, so they are not dinosaurs.

  9. Anonymous users2024-02-05

    I think it's probably because of the specific definition of dinosaurs.

  10. Anonymous users2024-02-04

    This is because the body structure and movement of pterosaurs are very similar to those of birds.

  11. Anonymous users2024-02-03

    This is because all of their families and genera are not similar to some of the dinosaurs.

  12. Anonymous users2024-02-02

    Pterodactyls are a big family, and there are more than 200 effective species found so far, but this is only the tip of the iceberg, there are still many pterosaur fossils waiting to be discovered, and there are also many pterosaurs that have not left fossils and have been annihilated in the long river of history. The largest known pterosaurs were Knott's Aeolian Pterodactyl, Albert's Pterodactyl and Hatezgo's Pterodactyl, all of which had a wingspan of 10-12 meters and weighed 200-250 kilograms.

    Pterodactyls are mainly divided into two main groups, namely the suborder Beacosaurus and the suborder Pterodactyl. The suborder of the beak-billed dinosaur was relatively small in size, with wide wings, a short neck, a short and strong skull, and a very large wing membrane. On the other hand, the pterosaur suborder was huge, with narrow wings, a long skull (mostly toothless), small hindwings, and a short tail.

    They all have a spine, but the spine of the pterosaur suborder was very large and complex. The largest pterosaur in the pterosaur family weighed 250 kilograms, reached a wingspan of more than 10 meters, and was about the height of a giraffe.

    The wing membrane of the pterosaur is composed of **, muscles, and other soft tissues, and the wing membrane is hollow from the sides of the body to the extended fourth finger, and their bones are hollow and very light, minimizing body weight, but still very strong. They have ridge-like sternums that attach flying muscles. The respiratory and circulatory systems of pterosaurs are also very advanced, in short, the body structure of pterosaurs can fully meet the needs of flight, but there is no consensus on how pterosaurs took off.

    Recent studies have shown that the Aeolian pterosaur probably used its hind and rear limbs to bounce and take off. Because of the large number of columnar supports inside the bones, and the longitudinal grooves on the surface of the bones, these features are clearly used to strengthen the bones, which are far stronger than they need to fly. Add to them the large number of tendons distributed in their forelimbs, and their strength is also more than necessary for flight.

    Therefore, when the Fengshen pterosaur took off, it was likely to face the wind, do a "super strong push-up", "bounce" itself to a height of more than two meters with its forelimbs, and then take off with its wings.

    While many animals can glide through the air, pterosaurs, birds, and bats are the only vertebrates that fly by flapping their wings. All three groups of animals are descendants of animals that live on the ground, and their wings have evolved in a similar way, with their forelimbs gradually becoming longer, like blades, and having aerodynamic properties. Large pterosaurs need strong limbs to get off the ground, but the thick bones can make them too heavy.

    So the wing bones of the pterosaur are hollow tubes, and the bone walls are not thicker than playing cards. Like bird bones, they are flexible and lightweight, while being reinforced by internal pillars.

    Many people have always had a misconception that pterosaurs were flying dinosaurs, but in fact pterosaurs were not dinosaurs, but separate pterosaurs, and dinosaurs are a collective term for sauropods and ornithischians. Pterodactyls were the first vertebrates capable of autonomous flight, an evolutionary branch of reptiles, which existed from 100 million years ago to 66 million years ago, throughout the Mesozoic Era, in the same period as the dinosaurs.

  13. Anonymous users2024-02-01

    It is unknown how much it can fly to the sky, but it can fly to the sky thanks to its wings, which have enough strength to support her body, and when the weight of the wings is greater than the weight of the body, it can fly into the sky.

  14. Anonymous users2024-01-31

    The weight of the pterosaur should be about a few hundred catties, and it can fly into the sky because its wings are stronger than its body.

  15. Anonymous users2024-01-30

    There are Chinese bird dragons nearby, primitive ancestral birds.

  16. Anonymous users2024-01-29

    Dinosaurs belong to the reptile class, and reptiles are not mammalian species, so the early mammalian reptiles you mentioned should be the evolutionary critical organisms of mammals and reptiles, which are neither mammals nor reptiles, so naturally they do not belong to dinosaurs. As for pterosaurs and all sorts of marine ones"Dragons"I don't quite understand, but it has something to do with the structure of their lungs or the appearance of some special bones in the skull.

  17. Anonymous users2024-01-28

    It is not because the name of the pterosaur is crowned with the word "dragon", so people who are not specialized in this field of research often mistakenly include pterosaurs in the ranks of dinosaurs, which is very wrong. First of all, in the class of reptiles, although pterosaurs and dinosaurs belong to the same class of the biforasome subclass of the Archetosaurus, they belong to different orders, pterosaurs belong to the order of pterosaurs in the class of primosaurs, and dinosaurs belong to the order of sauropods and ornithischians in the class of primosaurs, which are obviously two completely different evolutionary main lines, so the pterosaurs do not belong to dinosaurs in essence; Not to mention, pterosaurs and dinosaurs also have great differences in living habits, pterosaurs are a type of reptiles flying in the air, while dinosaurs live all on land and are suitable for inhabiting warm, humid plains or forest areas. By the way, in the reptile family, the word "dragon" in the name abounds.

    Among them, there are aquatic reptiles such as "ichthyosaurs" and "plesiosaurs" that fly in the air and swim in the ocean, and there are also crawling on land, while dinosaurs are only a part of the land reptiles.

  18. Anonymous users2024-01-27

    It shouldn't be, it should just be a reptile.

  19. Anonymous users2024-01-26

    Pterodactyls are not dinosaurs, they are insects.

  20. Anonymous users2024-01-25

    Pterodactyls were not dinosaurs.

    Pterodactyls are a class of flying reptiles that belong to the order Pterodactyls taxonomy. Dinosaurs are a class of reptiles that can walk upright on land on all fours or two hind limbs, and they belong to the general order of dinosaurs.

    Both pterosaurs and dinosaurs belong to the family Dimorphosaurs, probably descended from the same ancestor, and then began their separate evolutionary processes of flying in the sky and living on land, respectively. One branch of the dinosaur later evolved into a bird, gaining a completely new way of flying.

    Pterodactyls inhabit the seashore and lake, feed on fish, and are a branch of reptiles that have developed into the air. Its head is long, its neck is long, its eyes are large, and its 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. Pterodactyls can be divided into beak-billed dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and Dzungar pterosaurs.

    Features:

    The Wing Qing Demoloisosaurus is a very special class of reptiles with unique skeletal features. The forelimbs of pterosaurs are highly specialized, and the fourth finger is lengthened and thickened to become the flying wing finger, which is composed of four wing phalanxes, the front end has no claws, and together with the forelimbs, it forms the strong leading edge of the flying wing, supporting and connecting the membranes of the side of the body and the hind limbs, forming a wing membrane that can fly with a wing similar to the wings of birds.

    The wrist of the pterosaur developed a wing bone that protruded forward to the shoulder, which supported the wing membrane. The first to third fingers are slender on the outside of the wing membrane and become hook-like claws, and the fifth finger is vestigial and disappears.

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