Breakthrough discovery finds baby pterodactyls could fly from birth - something no other species before or since has been able to do
- Researchers say baby pterodactyl birds were born with an innate ability to fly
- This contradicts the common belief that they only took the air once fully grown
- Findings are remarkable as no other species today or in history can fly from birth
A breakthrough discovery shows that pterodactyls could fly from birth, something no other species before or since has been able to do.
And British scientists said that the revelation has a 'profound impact' on our understanding of the reptiles.
The common belief was the pterodactyls, like birds and bats, only took to the air once they were fully grown.
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A new study shows pterodactyls could fly from birth, something no other species before or since can do. The findings have a 'profound impact' on our understanding of reptiles
HOW DID PTERODACTYLS FLY?
Pterodactyls used both their arms and legs to push themselves off the ground during take-off, in a manoeuvre known as the 'quadrupedal launch'.
They were almost as tall as a giraffe with wing spans of around 32ft (10 metres).
Using a computer model, engineers worked out that creatures with a wing span of 39 ft (12 metres or above) would not be able to take off.
They showed that even the largest pterosaur would have been able to sustain flight by using air currents to glide.
It would also have been able to slow down sufficiently to make a safe landing because its wings were formed from a flexible membrane.
But taking off was all but impossible because large reptiles weighing almost half a tonne would not have had the push-off force required to get the model off the ground.
This was based on studies of fossilized embryos in China which showed they had poorly developed wings.
But the latest research from the Universities of Leicester and Lincoln looked at 19 embryos of four species from Argentina and China that died just before hatching.
They point to baby pterodactyls, known as flaplings, being able to fly once they had hatched from the egg.
They also looked at embryo growth in birds and crocodiles to prove that the earlier eggs were further away from hatching than was first thought.
Dr David Unwin, a University of Leicester palaeobiologist who specializes in the study of pterodactyls said: 'This discovery’s importance is highlighted by the fact that no other living vertebrates today, or in the history of life as we know it, is able to replicate this.
'This revelation has a profound impact on our understanding of how pterodactyls lived, which is critical to understanding how the dinosaur world worked as a whole.
'Theoretically what pterosaurs did, growing and flying, is impossible, but they didn't know this, so they did it anyway,' he added.
Along with Dr Charles Deeming, a University of Lincoln zoologist who researches avian and reptilian reproduction, they compared the earlier embryos with data on prenatal growth in birds and crocodiles, finding that they were still at an early stage of development and a long way from hatching.
The team said that as there was no parental nurturing in the species their ability to fly at birth gave them a lifesaving survival mechanism which they used to evade carnivorous dinosaurs.
The common belief was the pterodactyls, like birds and bats, only took to the air once they were fully grown. But new research shows that baby pterodactyl's flew after being born
However this also proved to be one of their biggest killers, as the demanding and dangerous process of flight led to many of them dying at a very early age.
Since flaplings were able to both fly and grow from birth, this provides a possible explanation as to why they were able to reach enormous wingspans, far larger than any historic or current species of bird or bat.
Dr Deeming added: 'This extends our knowledge of prenatal development in pterosaurs.
'[It] has important consequences for understanding the conditions under which eggs were incubated and how they developed, prenatal ossification sequences in pterosaurs and how they compare to those of other tetrapods, and the implications of those sequences for the locomotory ability of pterosaur hatchlings.
'Our technique shows that pterosaurs were different from birds and bats and so comparative anatomy can reveal novel developmental modes in extinct species.'