The most common depictions of ancient flying reptiles called pterosaurs are simply wrong, a new study demonstrates. In the configuration shown in most books, these bulky animals would have been unable to sustain flying, not even over short distances.
Pterosaurs were giant flying lizards that lived in the Jurassic... |
28 September 2011
10:23 GMT |
 |
|
After the first flying reptiles – pterosaurs – took to the skies tens to hundreds of millions of years ago, birds emerged in the world as well. Despite the fact that they were in direct competition with each other, the two groups continued to thrive, evolve and diversify in parallel.Fossil records show th... |
7 July 2011
08:01 GMT |
|
|
Wind tunnel tests reveal that the enormous pterosaurs, also called pterodactyls, flew with most ease and efficiency carried by slight, warm breezes at the tropics. These conditions allowed them to glide for long distances, and did not hinder their landing.This was a very important factor for these flying lizards, whi... |
24 November 2010
06:05 GMT |
|
|
According to new scientific evidence, it would appear that it was possible for ancient creatures called pterosaurs to fly for up to 10,000 miles without stop, many million years before jet flight was invented. These animals were the rulers of the sky before the K-T extinction. The event took place some 65 million yea... |
13 October 2010
04:49 GMT |
|
|
Researchers in China and the United Kingdom have identified the first convincing set of pieces of evidence hinting at an unusual and controversial type of evolution, when they have discovered the remains of a peculiar flying lizard. The animal seems to have been in the habit of hunting other flying creatures during i... |
14 October 2009
18:11 GMT |
|
|
Paleontologists have recently managed to uncover a first-of-its-kind prehistoric "runway" for pterosaurs, the ancient, bird-like animals. The tracks, found at a location dubbed Pterosaur Beach, in southwestern France, are the first evidence to show how these animals landed, which is something that is apparently very ... |
19 August 2009
06:46 GMT |
|
|
A researcher at the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) School of Medicine argues in a recent study, published in the journal Zitteliana, that pterosaurs, the giant 500 pound (roughly 250 kilograms)-heavy flying reptiles that lived from the late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous Period, between 220 and 65.5 million ye... |
7 January 2009
02:46 GMT |
|
|
Find us on Google+
