Sentences with phrase «as pterosaurs»

The newfound species, Caiuajara dobruskii, belongs to an ancient order of winged creatures known as pterosaurs.

Although Cimoliopterus dunni would have been large, it was mid-sized as pterosaurs go, with a wingspan of about 6 feet.

In its wake arose a group of egg - laying reptile precursors called archosaurs, the common ancestors of dinosaurs, flying reptiles known as pterosaurs, and crocodiles.

Not exact matches

The weird creatures in the depths of the oceans, the ichthyosaurs, pterosaurs and other extinct species, the enormous varieties of plants, insects, crustaceans, reptiles, fish and mammals — all of this makes us wonder whether chance might not be as good an «explanation» as any for the morphological richness of life.

Pterosaurs, «winged lizards,» often referred to as «pterodactyls» were flying reptiles of the clade Pterosauria.

The Daohugou Biota makes an immense contribution to our understanding of vertebrate evolution during this period, with such notable creatures as the oldest known gliding mammal, another early mammal that may have swum with a beaver - like tail, the oldest dinosaurs preserved with feathers, and a pterosaur that represents an important transitional form between two major groups.

The fish leaped out of the water and grabbed the pterosaur by its left wing as it was flying.

The specimen is unusual as most pterosaurs from the Late Cretaceous were much larger with wingspans of between four and eleven metres (the biggest being as large as a giraffe, with a wingspan of a small plane), whereas this new specimen had a wingspan of only 1.5 metres.

When the two researchers first caught sight of the embryo's sturdy upper arm bone and extremely long fourth finger, they «immediately recognized it as belonging to a pterosaur,» Zhou recalls.

As with other evidence of smaller pterosaurs, the fossil specimen is fragmentary and poorly preserved: researchers should check collections more carefully for misidentified or ignored pterosaur material, which may enhance our picture of pterosaur diversity and disparity at this time.»

Pterosaurs have been extinct for 65 million years, and the largest fossils are incomplete, so there has been much argument as to how, or whether, they flew.

That's because the pterosaur used its wings to «stall» as birds do, says the team, so that the animal's body swung up from a horizontal flight position to near vertical, enabling it to land gently on its hind feet.

According to his analysis, published in the European journal Zitteliana, pterosaurs folded their wings so they could act as arms and then used all four limbs to shove themselves aloft.

They portrayed pterosaurs as giant terrors of the skies, flying reptiles who snacked on large prey — and would in theory be dangerous even to humans.

Such membranes are known from flying bats and pterosaurs, as well as in flying squirrels that glide down from the trees.

New fossils now indicate some giant pterosaurs probably did dine on bigger prey, such as dwarf dinosaurs the size of a small horse, 70 million years ago on an island that became modern - day Transylvania.

He suggests that a swimming pterosaur could have made the first parallel prints when it planted its feet as it reached shore.

The slow - soaring pterosaur would have landed slowly as well, which might have helped preserve its flight - adapted light bones, unsuited for high impacts.

The researchers used a large - field SEM approach to analyze a shrimp fossil from the Araripe Basin, a place in northeastern Brazil known among paleontologists as a treasure trove of flying pterosaur remains.

Colin Palmer, a graduate student at the University of Bristol, arrived at this conclusion by employing his expertise as a turbine engineer to carry out first - of - a kind tests on models of pterosaur wings in a wind tunnel.

A spectacular fossil find is providing tantalizing new clues about the habits of pterosaurs, ancient flying reptiles that lived at the same times as dinosaurs.

This may explain why pterosaurs» wings widened as they evolved — to help navigate land environments.

(Pterosaurs are popularly known as pterodactyls.)

«As a result, this research makes an important contribution to the understanding of the evolution of all of pterosaurs.»

The collection features such memorable creatures as the oldest known gliding mammal, another early mammal that may have swum with a beaver - like tail, the oldest dinosaurs preserved with feathers and a pterosaur that represents an important transitional form among these now extinct, warm - blooded flying reptiles.

«The Daohugou Biota gives us a look at a rarely glimpsed side of the Middle to Late Jurassic - not a parade of galumphing giants, but an assemblage of quirky little creatures like feathered dinosaurs, pterosaurs with advanced heads on primitive bodies, and the Mesozoic equivalent of a flying squirrel,» lead author Corwin Sullivan, an associate professor at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, was quoted as saying in a press release.

This event had eliminated dinosaurs, pterosaurs, ammonites and belemnites, as well as many groups of birds, bivalves, brachiopods, marine reptiles, plants and planktonic organisms.

But in recent years, scientists have discovered specimens that suggest pterosaurs grew larger as they evolved.

There is persuasive evidence (e.g., optimal wing loading design for pterosaurs, etc.) that the atmosphere was once 2 - 4X as dense.