Dinosaurs were the dominant animals during the Mesozoic, throughout this period they have diversified enormously and have spread across the planet, some of them dared to colonize the air, resulting in different types of flying dinosaurs and, finally, birds.
However, huge flying animals commonly called dinosaurs are not actually dinosaurs, but other types of flying reptiles.Want to know more? Don’t miss this Animal Expert article about flying dinosaur types: names and images.
- During the Mesozoic.
- Many types of dinosaurs populated the entire planet.
- Becoming the dominant vertebrates.
- We can group these animals into two orders:.
Enter this article to find out how the dinosaurs disappeared
The development of flight capacity in dinosaurs has been a slow process in which adaptations of today’s birds have emerged.In chronological order of appearance, here are the characteristics of flying dinosaurs:
Flying dinosaurs included and included (in this case birds) carnivorous animals, as well as many types of herbivorous and omnivorous dinosaurs, now that you know the characteristics that gradually gave birth to birds, let’s look at some types of flying dinosaurs or primitive birds:
It is a genus of primitive birds that lived in the Late Jurassic about 150 million years ago, considered a form of transition between non-flying dinosaurs and current birds, were not more than half a meter long and their wings were long and yet they are believed to have only been able to float and may have been tree climbers.
A flying dinosaur that lived in the Cretaceous period, about 125 million years ago.It was no more than fifteen centimetres long, had prensiles, pygostile legs and coracoids.Fossils were found in Spain.
It was one of the first birds with bare teeth, and Charles Darwin considered it to be one of the best tests for the theory of evolution.These flying dinosaurs lived 90 million years ago and were about 43 centimeters wide.Externally, they were very similar to today’s seagulls.
As you can see, the types of flying dinosaurs had nothing to do with what I probably imagined.This is because the great flying reptiles of the Mesozoic were not really dinosaurs, but pterosaurs, but why?Here are the main differences between the two:
Pterosaurs, erroneously known as flying dinosaurs, were in fact another type of reptile that coexisted with real dinosaurs during the Mesozoic.As many families of pterosaurs are known, we will examine some of the most important genera:
The best known types of flying reptiles are pterodactyls (Pterodactylus), a genus of carnivorous pterosaurs that feed on small animals.Like most pterosaurs, pterodactyls had a crest on the head that was probably a sexual claim.
The huge Quetzalcoatlus is a genus of pterosaurs in the family Azhdarchidae.This family includes the largest types of known flying dinosaurs.
The Quetzalcoatlus, named after an Aztec deity, could reach a wingspan of 10 to 11 meters and were probably predators, believed to have been adapted to terrestrial life and quadrupedal locomotion.
Ranforrinco was a relatively small pterosaur, with a wingspan of almost two meters, its name means “picudo snout”, and it is because it has a snout that ends in a beak with teeth at the apex, although its most striking feature is undoubtedly the long tail, often represented in cinema.
Other types of flying dinosaurs? include the following genera
Now that you know all the types of flying dinosaurs that exist, you may also be interested in this other Animal Expert article about prehistoric marine animals.
If you want to read articles similar to Flying Dinosaur Types: Names and Images, we recommend that you visit our Curiosities section of the animal world.