Pterosaurs May Have Sported Far More Varied Wings than Paleontologists Imagined
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New research from the University of Bristol suggests that pterosaurs — the first vertebrates to achieve powered flight — probably displayed a much wider array of wing shapes and flying styles than fossil-based reconstructions have depicted.
compared theoretical pterosaur wings with published reconstructions over a series of shape and function tests to understand whether the current scientific understanding of pterosaur wing shape is likely to accurately represent the diversity of pterosaur wing shapes and whether issues in depicting pterosaurs stem from the style or substance of life reconstructions; their results revealed that reconstructions do not perform as expected and thus do not accurately represent the flight abilities of pterosaurs. Pterosaurs thrived from about 210 to 65 million years ago, when they were wiped out by the asteroid that also doomed all non-avian dinosaurs. These reptiles are significant because they independently evolved flight and, through the course of their evolutionary history, established new extremes in the maximum size for flying vertebrates.
Nevertheless, the precise shape of pterosaur wings remains poorly understood. “Wing shape is integrally related to flight performance and function in living animals,” said lead author Dr. Benton Walters and colleagues.
“Analyzing this relationship in pterosaurs is complicated by the fragmentary nature of the fossil record and because the flight dimensions of wing membranes do not preserve.” “In the absence of fully extended pterosaur wing fossils, scientific reconstruction of the pterosaur bauplan presents the clearest alternative for analysis.” “However, these wing shapes are subject to multiple conflicting scientific opinions and the artistic styles of the researchers and illustrators reconstructing them.”
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