Rulers of the primeval sky
Using fossils and mathematical models, paleontologists are trying to understand how the giant pterodactyls took flight.
The Mesozoic Age from 252 to 66 million years ago is considered the age of the dinosaurs. In fact, the "terrible lizards" ruled the habitats on land - but sovereignty in the air was reserved for other giants: their related pterosaurs.
Long before birds took off from the ground, pterosaurs took to the skies, becoming the first vertebrates to actively fly. They thrived for more than 160 million years, only to disappear around the end of the Cretaceous 66 million years ago, along with all dinosaurs except birds. During this time, they developed some of the most extraordinary anatomical adaptations ever seen in animals. The smallest of the flying predators were the size of a sparrow. The wingspan of the largest corresponded to that of a small jet plane. For many of them, the head was larger than the body. As flying maws, pterosaurs patrolled all of the world's oceans and continents. No animal of the Mesozoic was safe from her keen gaze.
Unlike the dinosaurs, which survived as birds to this day, the pterosaurs have no surviving descendants. Therefore, all knowledge about them comes exclusively from fossils. Unfortunately, the finds, which have been handed down only incompletely, give us only a faint glimpse of the former glory of these reptiles and leave a we alth of questions about their bizarre anatomy and their unfortunate fate. Paleontologists have been pondering such mysteries for decades. However, new fossil finds combined with mathematical models that greatly simplify the anatomical structures in order to estimate physical properties such as force, mass or speed are now providing surprising insights. So the pterosaurs were even more extraordinary than we ever imagined.
What seems particularly mysterious is how the largest representatives of the group were able to get up in the air at all…
