Pterosaur hatchlings may have been able to fly right out of the shell — although the flight of those ancient baby reptiles might have looked a bit different from that of the adults.
Pterosaurs were a diverse group of ancient flying reptiles that lived alongside dinosaurs from the Triassic to the Cretaceous periods, 228 million to 66 million years ago.
“Baby pterosaurs almost certainly didn’t glide,” they flew, says Kevin Padian, a paleontologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who was not part of the new study. The three keys to flight, he says, are strong bones, sufficient muscle mass to stay in the air for a long time and sturdy keratin fibers in the skin of the wings, analogous to the feathers of birds. “We know little about the last two.”
So researchers turned to the bones. Darren Naish, a paleontologist at the University of Southampton in England, and his colleagues compared fossilized embryo and hatchling wing measurements with those of adults from two species, Pterodaustro guinazui and Sinopterus dongi. The researchers analyzed wingspans, the strength of wing bones and how much load the wings could carry. In particular, they zeroed in on one wing bone, the humerus. That bone is found on the limbs pterosaurs use to launch themselves into flight and offers key information on whether a pterosaur was capable of getting off the ground.
The hatchlings’ humerus bones were surprisingly stronger than those of many of the adults, the team found.
Pterosaurs were a diverse group of ancient flying reptiles that lived alongside dinosaurs from the Triassic to the Cretaceous periods, 228 million to 66 million years ago.
“Baby pterosaurs almost certainly didn’t glide,” they flew, says Kevin Padian, a paleontologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who was not part of the new study. The three keys to flight, he says, are strong bones, sufficient muscle mass to stay in the air for a long time and sturdy keratin fibers in the skin of the wings, analogous to the feathers of birds. “We know little about the last two.”
So researchers turned to the bones. Darren Naish, a paleontologist at the University of Southampton in England, and his colleagues compared fossilized embryo and hatchling wing measurements with those of adults from two species, Pterodaustro guinazui and Sinopterus dongi. The researchers analyzed wingspans, the strength of wing bones and how much load the wings could carry. In particular, they zeroed in on one wing bone, the humerus. That bone is found on the limbs pterosaurs use to launch themselves into flight and offers key information on whether a pterosaur was capable of getting off the ground.
The hatchlings’ humerus bones were surprisingly stronger than those of many of the adults, the team found.
