Sentences with phrase «azhdarchoid pterosaur»

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.

June 12, 2013 — Brazilian paleontologists Taissa Rodrigues, of the Federal University of Espirito Santo, and Alexander W. A. Kellner, of the National Museum of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, have just presented the most extensive review yet available of toothed pterosaurs from the Cretaceous of England.

An example of convergent evolution is the similar nature of the flight / wings of insects, birds, pterosaurs, and bats.

At some point during the next period, the Triassic, pterosaurs and dinosaurs split off from the crocodile lineage.

Archosauromorphs, which existed about 250 million years ago, were the creatures that evolved into crocodiles, dinosaurs, birds and pterosaurs.

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.

She soon discovered more, including plesiosaurs, fish, invertebrates and a pterosaur, England's first.

The dragon's sheer size dwarfs the biggest pterosaurs, the largest flying animals ever known.

While conducting paleontological research in northeastern Mexico, the scientists came upon sedimentary rock deposited toward the end of the Cretaceous Period that evidenced an enormous diversity of fossils, including the tracks of birds, dinosaurs and pterosaurs.

«For most of the dinosaurs and pterosaurs, this strike no longer had any effect,» explains Prof. Stinnesbeck.

The team compared the thickness of the bones» walls and their resistance to torsion — a twisting force that birds» wings withstand during flapping flight — with similar bones from several dinosaurs, flying reptiles called pterosaurs and modern birds.

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

This sparse sample size was dramatically increased upon the discovery of 215 eggs of the pterosaurs species Hamipterus tianshanensis from a Lower Cretaceous site in China.

Lastly, the fact that a single collection of embryos exhibits a range of developmental stages hints that pterosaurs participated in colonial nesting behavior, the authors say.

Based on growth marks, the team estimates one of the individuals to be at least 2 years old and still growing at the time of its death, supporting the growing body of evidence that pterosaurs had long incubation periods.

An invaluable collection of more than 200 eggs is providing new insights into the development and nesting habits of pterosaurs.

During this struggle the pterosaur drowned with the small fish it had caught halfway down its throat.

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 pterosaur flew just above the water of the tropical lagoon.

«Hundreds of fossilized eggs shed light on pterosaur development.»

These teeth became entangled with the tough fibres, or aktinofibrils, that reinforced the wing membranes of the pterosaur, Rhamphorhynchus muensteri.

To date, only a small handful of pterosaur eggs with a well - preserved 3 - D structure and embryo inside have been found and analyzed — three eggs from Argentina and five from China.

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

High - tech analyses of pterosaur skulls show that the first flying vertebrates packed some sophisticated navigational hardware.

Pterosaurs took this tendency to the extreme, and the result was enormous wings and very low wing loading.

The results reveal that pterosaurs had a giant flocculus, a brain region responsible for keeping track of the body's location and for coordinating the movement of the eyes.

Cunningham believes that a large pterosaur could launch itself without «running and a lot of mad flapping» — but he won't say how, because he's going to publish a paper on it.

It is not clear if these giant finds represent a new species in the pterosaur family, which includes pterodactyls and crested pteradons.

The aspiring pilot has the help of Tennessee engineer Jim Cunningham, who has been studying two fossil pterosaurs to figure out just how their wings worked.

A large pterosaur may have had a wingspan of 11 meters, «which made it the size of a light aircraft,» she says.

While working in Mexico, paleontologist Eberhard Frey of the Natural History Museum in Karlsruhe, Germany, discovered the footprints of a pterosaur with a wingspan of at least 59 feet — larger than that of a modern fighter jet.

Now one aeronaut is looking to the ancient leathery - winged pterosaur in hopes of becoming the pilot of the world's first successful ornithopter.

Pterosaurs and primitive birds glided above, and rivers teemed with turtles, fish, and fish - eating plesiosaurs.

Pterosaur wings were good for gliding but were also maneuverable because of a special shoulder joint.

There is also a debate about where pterosaurs fit in the evolutionary tree.

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.

Egg accumulation with 3D embryos provides insight into the life history of a pterosaur.

Happily, enough of the specimen was recovered to determine the approximate age of the pterosaur at the time of its death.

Such mature features suggest that, like modern chickens, ducks, and turkeys, pterosaurs probably could fend for themselves soon after hatching.

Elizabeth Martin - Silverstone added: «The absence of small juveniles of large species — which must have existed — in the fossil record is evidence of a preservational bias against small pterosaurs in the Late Cretaceous.

These flying reptiles are shown here not surrounded not by other pterosaurs, but birds.

The hollow bones of pterosaurs are notoriously poorly preserved, and larger animals seem to be preferentially preserved in similarly aged Late Cretaceous ecosystems of North America.

The first known pterosaur egg reveals a well - developed embryonic skeleton, com - plete with wing membranes and skin impressions.

It adds to a growing set of evidence that the Late Cretaceous period was not dominated by large or giant species, and that smaller pterosaurs may have been well represented in this time.

No one would expect a baby bird to take flight immediately after hatching, yet paleontologists who have examined the first known pterosaur embryo think that's exactly what the fledgling reptiles once did.

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.

Previous studies suggest that the Late Cretaceous skies were only occupied by much larger pterosaur species and birds, but this new finding, which is reported in the Royal Society journal Open Science, provides crucial information about the diversity and success of Late Cretaceous pterosaurs.

Dr Witton said: «The specimen is far from the prettiest or most complete pterosaur fossil you'll ever see, but it's still an exciting and significant find.

A pterosaur egg is no surprise, because the animals were reptiles.

The specimen thus seems to be a genuinely small species, and not just a baby or juvenile of a larger pterosaur type.»