Pterosaurs, the flying cousins of the dinosaurs, reached immense sizes in the late Cretaceous period (100-66 million years ago), some species with wingspans of perhaps more than ten metres.
Their ancestors during the earlier Triassic and Jurassic periods (252-145 million years ago) had far more modest wingspans, up to about two metres. But scientists haven’t found any fossils of these much smaller pterosaur species from the later period.
This absence of smaller forms has often been linked with the evolution of birds, who could have outcompeted and replaced small pterosaur species. This explanation has held sway for a couple of decades or more, but it raises questions.
For example, research suggests pterosaurs were highly precocial (capable of fending for themselves shortly after birth) and could fly soon after hatching. If this was the case, why then were not all pterosaurs replaced by birds who would have outcompeted the young of the large forms as well as the small pterosaur species?
Our international research group has been pondering these and other pterosaur problems for the past 40 years. In our new study, we’ve discovered it was actually probably the babies of giant pterosaurs – known as flaplings – who overshadowed the…
