Pterosaurs..

Pterosaurs are one of the four know types of evolutionary flight. Pterosaur flight died out with the last of these leviathans of the sky. We know of just a few of the hundreds of species and sub species of what has become known, incorrectly as flying dinosaurs. They where in fact more akin to flying lizards.

From what we know today these animals filled all the slots now taken by modern day birds they fed on fish, meat, vegetation and carrion some hunted and killed and other probably where quite happy with fruit and nuts. We believe they laid eggs and cared for their young we have no idea of colour as colour doesn’t fossilize. We don’t know if they where cold or hot blooded as internal body parts don’t fossilize well.

They came in all sizes small and nimble enough to catch insects and moths on the wing( pigeon size 50cm wingspan) Big and strong enough to catch large prey and carry it back to their nest sites (light aircraft 14 meters wingspan) They lived in over the planet as do birds today on coasts in mountains, valley’s, deserts and plains. They ruled the sky’s for hundreds of millions of years then disappeared for ever.

Unlike dinosaurs who we now believe to have evolved into the birds we see today it is not thought that pterosaurs evolved into bats although it may be we just haven’t found the evolutionary transitional link yet. They do look very similar don’t they? We have several representations in the exhibition smallest is Sordis 300mm largest Pterodactyl 7m even a filter feeder that fed on the same kind of krill as a modern day flamingo.

What colour do you thing they may have been?

 

 

 

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