When you buy through radio link on our site , we may earn an affiliate commission . Here ’s how it works .
The first flying animals did n’t shrink from a little competition , a unexampled study find out . In fact , these pilot reptiles , or pterosaurs , try all variety of experiment to stay on ahead when birds arrived on the scene , from eating seed rather of meat to losing all of their teeth .
This pattern of organic evolution is strange , researchers reported today ( July 6 ) in the Journal of Systematic Paleontology .
Pterosaurs ranged in size from Quetzalcoatlus, which was as tall as a giraffe, to Anurognathus, an insect-eater the size of a small bird seen to the left of Quetzalcoatlus.
" Usually , when a raw mathematical group of animals or plants evolves , they quickly strain out all the option , said sketch investigator Katy Prentice , a student at the University of Bristol . " When we did this study , we thought thatpterosaurswould be the same . … But the amazing thing is that they did n’t begin to germinate until after the birds had seem . "
apprentice and her confrere looked at 50 different pterosaur specie crop from the size of a blackbird to the size of a giraffe . The camelopard - sized pterosaur , Quetzalcoatlus , had a wingspan of 39 feet ( 12 metre ) . They may have strolled across ancient prairiessnapping up small dinosaursas snacks just as a innovative - day crane might target frogs and anuran .
The findings disclose that pterosaurs became three times as various 125 million years ago than they were before wench evolved . Birds and flying reptilian portion out the skies until 65 million years ago , when the mass experimental extinction that killed the dinosaurs took out Quetzalcoatlus and its relatives as well .
