Name: Ancestor of pterosaurs might have been a tree-climbing reptile
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Ancestor of pterosaurs might have been a tree-climbing reptile

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×ByWe finally have a clearer picture of how pterosaurs – a group of extinct flying reptiles – first evolved. The creatures shared dozens of key traits with a long-extinct group of dinosaur-like reptiles that might have been skilled tree climbers, according to a new analysis.Pterosaurs evolved about 220 million years ago and for around 160 million years, until they went extinct along with . Yet figuring out which group of reptiles they evolved from has been difficult.“They appear in the fossil record with fully developed wings and all the modifications associated with flight,” says Martín Ezcurra at the Bernardino Rivadavia Argentine Museum of Natural Science in Buenos Aires.AdvertisementThat is probably because the ancestors of were small and relatively rare, so they were unlikely to end up as fossils. But once these reptiles took to the air,&nbsp; and , so were much more likely to fossilise.At the time they evolved, there were no other flying vertebrates to compete with, says Ezcurra. “It was a completely empty ecological niche.”His team has been studying a little-known group called the lagerpetids. These reptiles, which lived from around 237 to 210 million years ago, are related to the ancestors of dinosaurs and may have been bipedal.But recent fossil discoveries and closer looks at some previous finds show that lagerpetids are most closely related to pterosaurs. For instance, pterosaurs and lagerpetids are the only reptiles around at the time with a relatively large floccular fossa – a part of the brain involved in coordinating eye, head and neck movements.The anatomy of their inner ears is also very similar, and resembles that of birds and primates that move in a complex 3D environment and need to accurately sense their position, says Ezcurra. Characteristics like these were thought to have evolved as pterosaurs took to the air, but it is now clear that they must have been present in the common ancestor of lagerpetids and pterosaurs.Lagerpetids also had curved claws on their forelimbs that might have been used for climbing. It suggests that they were agile tree climbers, but there is no way to be sure of this, says Ezcurra.Journal reference: Nature,More on these topics:AdvertisementTrendingLatestVideoFree

×ByWe finally have a clearer picture of how pterosaurs – a group of extinct flying reptiles – first evolved. The creatures shared dozens of key traits with a long-extinct group of dinosaur-like reptiles that might have been skilled tree climbers, according to a new analysis.Pterosaurs evolved about 220 million years ago and for around 160 million years, until they went extinct along with . Yet figuring out which group of reptiles they evolved from has been difficult.“They appear in the fossil record with fully developed wings and all the modifications associated with flight,” says Martín...

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Ancestor of pterosaurs might have been a tree-climbing reptile

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