Lukas VFN 🇪🇺A #NewSpecies of flying reptile reshuffles the timeline of pterosaur evolution https://phys.org/news/2024-12-species-flying-reptile-reshuffles-timeline.html
The oldest monofenestratan #pterosaur from the Queso Rallado locality: Alexandra Fernandes et al. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.241238
"Whereas most early #pterosaurs still had rather short wings and a long tail, the derived subgroup of #pterodactyloids had slender, elongate wings and a shortened tail... The transition happened during the #Jurassic"
A new species of flying reptile reshuffles the timeline of pterosaur evolution
About 230 million years ago, almost 80 million years before the first bird appeared, their distantly related cousins, the pterosaurs took to the sky, as the first group of active fliers among the vertebrates. Pterosaurs developed active, flapping flight with the help of a wing membrane, which was mainly spanned by the strongly elongated fourth finger of the hand.