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Like Frank Sinatra, even pterosaur babies could sing "Come Fly With Me".
A new study released Wednesday reveals that pterosaurs – flying reptiles that lived in the age of dinosaurs – had the ability to fly from birth.
The research, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, refutes the previous claim that pterodactyls (also called pterosaurs) could only fly when they reached their normal size, a hypothesis based on fossilized embryos found in China with "undeveloped wings."
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The new research paper cites evidence of all known pterosaur embryos found on the planet and states that they were able to fly immediately after birth.
"Theoretically, what pterosaurs did, grow and fly, is impossible, but they did not know it, so they did it anyway," said Dr. David Unwin, the lead author of the study, in a statement.
Unwin and his co-author, Charles Deeming, examined 19 embryos belonging to four different species. They found that "[f]According to the study abstract, the old bone ossification of the spine, limb girdle and major limb bones resulted in heterochromic changes in onset times, including Man IV, and facilitated complete development of the flight device before hatching.
"This is consistent with a super-precocial flight ability and, without excluding the possibility of parental custody in pterosaurs, suggests that it was not an absolute requirement," the summary adds.
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Unlike modern birds or bats, pterodactyl babies did not benefit from parental care. Instead, they had to fend for themselves after birth, the statement added, adding even more weight to the fact that escape and escape from predators were paramount from birth. This also explains why so many of them died in infancy.
"Our technique shows that pterosaurs were different from birds and bats and that, therefore, comparative anatomy may reveal new ways of developing extinct species," Deeming said in his report. communicated.
The strange behavior of pterosaurs at an early age may have also led to their huge wings, the researchers noted. Flying reptile wings ranged in size from 10 inches to over 30 feet.
In 2017, a new pterosaur discovered in Mongolia had a wingspan of 8 meters, according to National Geographic.
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