Pterosaurs acquired flight "in a burst at their origin," giving scientists new insights into the biological laws of flight ...

Ancient pterosaurs may have taken to the skies far earlier and more explosively than birds, evolving flight at their very ...

Flight is a rare skill in the animal world. Among vertebrates, it evolved only three times: in bats, birds, and the long-extinct pterosaurs. Pterosaurs were the pioneers, taking to the skies more than ...

A new study using advanced fossil imaging reveals that ancient pterosaurs may have mastered flight almost instantly when they first appeared, without the large brains that supported flight in birds. A ...

For more than a hundred years, scientists believed flying reptiles called pterosaurs took to the air with birdlike brains. Old fossils seemed to show it. Hard stone casts inside skulls hinted at big ...

In a study of fossils, a research team led by an evolutionary biologist at Johns Hopkins Medicine suggests that a group of giant reptiles alive up to 220 million years ago may have acquired the ...

Reconstruction of a Late Triassic landscape (approximately 215 million years ago). A lagerpetid, a close relative of pterosaurs, is perched on a rock, observing pterosaurs flying overhead. Tübingen, ...

In an eat-or-be-eaten world, flight conveys a bevy of benefits. A creature that takes to the third dimension can more easily escape earthbound predators, dine off a much broader menu or drop down on ...

A few years ago, Maria McNamara was invited to Brussels by fellow paleontologist Pascal Godefroit and presented with an intriguing opportunity. At the time, they were collaborating on a study of an ...