The Forerunners of the Pterosaurs
Pterosaurs were the first vertebrates to actively fly. Their evolutionary origins have long been obscure - until now.
In 1812, Georges Cuvier (1769-1832), the famous anatomist at the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle in Paris, wrote the first comprehensive work on fossil tetrapods. In it, Cuvier de alt with everything that was known about the paleontology of land vertebrates and described the mysterious variety of shapes in their fossils. Some fossils turned out to be clearly related to known living animals, others seemed strange and difficult to classify. But none seemed as whimsical as a little creature from the Jurassic period.
1800 Cuvier heard about the find for the first time: in a letter, his friend Johann Hermann (1738-1800), curator of natural history in Strasbourg, wrote about a fossil from the Mannheim Natural History Cabinet that had been excavated in the Altmühl Valley in Bavaria was and could not be compared with anything. Based on the classic-philosophical description by Cosimo Collini (1727-1806) published in 1784, Hermann described some of the specimen's characteristics and attached sketches he had made himself. He correctly noticed that the animal had an extremely elongated finger, which had probably once worn a wing skin. It couldn't be a bird, but bats have wings supported by finger bones. Was it something similar? Hermann drew the creature as some sort of mammal, complete with soft earcups, fur, and genitals.
Cuvier was intrigued – and frustrated…
