Scientists now know the origins of pterosaurs, the dinosaur era's flying reptiles
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Flying beasts
Pterosaurs are flying reptiles that ruled the skies at the same time that dinosaurs dominated the land about 220 million years ago. They were fully developed for flight and had wings formed by a membrane extending from the ankles to an exceptionally elongated fourth finger, studies suggested. While starting relatively small, pterosaurs eventually achieved huge dimensions, with wingspans reaching 35 feet (10.7 meters).
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Enduring mystery solved
Pterosaurs' origin however was shrouded in a mystery till now. Scientists may have now solved this enduring mystery. "We have been studying how birds transformed their bodies for flight for the last 50 years and most of this was driven by extraordinary fossils of dinosaurs and early birds," Virginia Tech paleontologist and study co-author Sterling Nesbitt said. "Pterosaurs have not experienced this renaissance of understanding yet because we didn't have the fossils."
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Precursors found
Researchers said on Wednesday a poorly understood Triassic Period reptile group called lagerpetids, known from a few partial skeletons from the United States, Argentina, Brazil and Madagascar, appears to have been the evolutionary precursor to pterosaurs.
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Flightless insect-eaters
Lagerpetids, first appeared about 237 million years ago, were generally small and may have been bipedal insect-eaters. They could not fly. Pterosaurs became Earth's first flying vertebrates, with birds and then bats appearing much later.
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Ancestors of dinos too
Lagerpetids also appear to be closely related to dinosaurs, the researchers said. The oldest-known dinosaur dates to about 233 million years ago. Pterosaurs disappeared 66 million years ago in the asteroid collision that also doomed the dinosaurs.