A pterodactyl dinosaur

Are Pterodactyls Dinosaurs? Learn More About These Prehistoric Predators

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Are Pterodactyls Dinosaurs? Learn More About These Prehistoric Predators

Dinosaurs

Sep 08, 2020

These pterrific facts will help you answer the popular question of whether pterodactyls are dinosaurs!

Pterodactyls, the common name for pterosaurs, are an extinct group of winged reptiles. There was a genus of pterosaur called Pterodactylus – which is where the word “pterodactyl” comes from – but not all pterosaurs belong to this genus.

Are pterosaurs birds, dinosaurs, or mammals? The answer? D: none of the above! Because they flew and their front limbs stretch out to the sides, they are not dinosaurs. Instead, they’re a distant dinosaur cousin.

Pterosaurs lived from the late Triassic Period to the end of the Cretaceous Period, when they went extinct along with dinosaurs. Pterosaurs were carnivores, feeding mostly on fish and small animals. Many had hooked claws and sharp teeth that they used to grab their prey.

Pterosaurs evolved into dozens of individual species. Some were as large as F-16 fighter jets, while others were as small as paper airplanes.

They were also the first animals after insects to evolve powered flight. This means they didn’t just leap into the air or glide but flapped their wings to generate lift.

However, not all pterosaurs could fly. Pterodactylus flew using wings formed by a tough, thin membrane stretching along their bodies to their elongated fourth finger.

Like birds, pterosaurs had lightweight, hollow bones. Pterosaur skeletons survive as fossils only when their bodies came to rest in a very protected environment. Most pterosaur remains come from species that lived near the ocean or sea.

Many Pterodactylus fossils are preserved in Bavaria, Germany. During the Jurassic period, the region was a swampy wetland at the edge of an ancient sea. Organisms that washed into the wetland became buried in the mud. This mud slowly hardened into limestone and the bones fossilized.

While Pterodactyls are not classified as dinosaurs, they still have a lot in common with other prehistoric predators, and we still have much to learn about them. The rarity of fossils leaves major gaps in our knowledge about pterosaurs. How did they evolve flight? Why did they vanish? What exactly did they look like? Maybe one day you’ll help find answers to these questions!

Learn more about pterosaurs with these videos or stomp into DinoDigs to learn about more prehistoric pals!

Dinosaur Fossils at the American Museum of Natural History
Reptiles of the Skies | Walking with Dinosaurs
Pterosaurs 101

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Pterodactyl Pictures & Facts - The Dinosaur Database

Pterodactyl was a pterosaur, a type of flying reptile. It was not a dinosaur, though it lived during the same period. Pterodactyl lived during the Late Jurassic and resided in Africa and Europe. The first Pterodactyl fossil was discovered in 1815.

Probably the most well-known flying dinosaur, the Pterodactyl is not actually a dinosaur at all, but a pterosaur! Pterosaurs were airborne reptiles of the Late Jurassic period, and they are frequently associated with dinosaurs in the popular imagination. It soared through the pre-historic skies of what is now Europe and northern Africa.

In art, the pterodactyl is usually portrayed with bat-like wings, the membranes of which are stretched taut between its elongated fingers. It is also frequently shown with a crest on its head, although there is some debate as to whether this crest was extant in the Pterodactyl as with other Pterosaurs. In fact, many artistic portrayals of the Pterodactyl seem to be heavily influenced by the physiology of the Pteranodon.

The majority of specimens of Pterodactyl have been approximately the size of modern large birds such as hawks and eagles, considerably smaller than the Pteranodon and smaller than many artistic portrayals. Pterodactyls are more correctly known by the scientific term Pterodactylus, and images associated with that term tend to be more accurate and distinct from the Pteranodon.

All the Pterodactyl illustrations below were collected from the internet. Enjoy and explore:

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Source: http://someinterestingfacts.net/pterosaur-facts/

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Source: http://www. theinformationarchives.com/Pterodactyl/

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Video about Pterodactyl

Other pterosaur dinosuars

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Source: http://fineartamerica.com/featured/pterodactyl-adrian-chesterman.html

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Source: http://modthesims.info/d/348076

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Source: http://lookingfordrama.com/2012/01/dramatic-exit-pt-2-the-scatter-effect/

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Source: http://commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pterodactyl_2_(PSF).png

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Source: http://dinosaurs.wikia.com/wiki/Pterodactylus

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Source: http://www.theinformationarchives.com/Pterodactyl/

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Source: http://www.cuatro.com/mas-de-cuatro/Pterodactyl_0_424725002.html

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Source: http://jockmackenzie.wordpress.com/2009/06/20/teacher-expectations-a-story/

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Source: http://imgbuddy.com/pterodactyl.asp

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Source: http://www.badmovies.org/capsules/p/pterodactyl/

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Source: http://warmsocks.wordpress.com/2010/12/10/dactylitis/

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Thanks to the illustrators, PaleoDB, Dr. Christopher Scotese, and QuickChart Chart API enabling us to create this page.

Pterodactyl bird or dinosaur? - Children's online encyclopedia "I want to know everything"

The very first animals on our Earth, most likely, were unicellular marine organisms. Since there were no hard tissues in their body, the prints could not be preserved. The most ancient organisms lived about 600 million years ago. Some of them looked like worms or plants, while others, like crustaceans, had a hard head shield. Pterodactyl is the first animal of the genus of flying lizards that lived on the frontier Jurassic and Cretaceous . It resembles a bird with large wings and a sharp beak.

Most of the pterodactyls were quite large, and their body was incredibly light, due to the fact that the bones themselves were light and hollow. This made it possible for these lizards to fly easily using their webbed wings. The wings of the pterodactyl themselves were such a kind of skin fold, attached to the bones of the wrist and to the fourth finger, and resembled the wings of bats. Hence the name of these dinosaurs, translated pterodactyl means "fingerwing".

I would also like to note that pterodactyls were highly organized animals and often gathered in flocks.

These dinosaurs could range in size from the smallest, such as a sparrow, to an absolutely gigantic animal that could reach 12 meters in wingspan. It is believed that they clung to the rocks, then pushed off and glided in height, while not forgetting to fish from the surface of the sea. The paws of the pterodactyl had fingers, which made it possible to grab fish directly from the water, on the fly. Of course, large representatives could eat fish, and the small ones were mostly insects.

As already mentioned, pterodactyls clung to the rocks with their paws and repelled, taking off. It is curious that just like that, from the ground, they could not at all rise to the top, into the air, they certainly had to climb a tree, rock or cliff. And only from a certain height, they dived down, spread their wings and thus could fly.

Moreover, these lizards were excellent at climbing trees, mountains and rocks, but they practically could not move on land , that is, they could, of course, but it was given to them with great difficulty. This circumstance made them very easy prey for other predators and dinosaurs. For the same reason, they lived mainly on trees and cliffs, so as not to become too easy prey.

One of the most prominent representatives of pterodactyls were quetzalcoatluses and pteronodons.

Excavations have suggested that pterodactyls lived on four of the six continents: Europe, Africa, America and Australia.

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Toy figurine Masai Mara World of dinosaurs

Toy figurine Masai Mara World of dinosaurs - Pterodactyl0002 1 218 ₽

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