Pterosaurs stand out as one of the natures great success stories they first appeared during the Triassic period 215 million years ago and thrived for 150 million years before becoming extinct at the end of uncontested in the air pterosaurs colonized all continents and evolved into a vast array of the shapes and sizes. Until recently most scientists would not have put pterosaurs in the same class as birds in terms of flying ability because pterosaurs were reptiles of researches imagined that these creatures must have been cold blooded like modern snakes and awkward as they would have lacked the endurance to power their muscles for long periods of time. In the past three decades however a number of fossil discoveries have prompted researchers to re examine their views. the new picture of pterosaurs reveals that they were unlike any modern reptile from a fossil discovered in Kazakhstan scientists suspect that pterosaurs had a covering resembling fur. If so this detail provides evidence of a warm blooded body that could maintain the kind of effort needed to stay in the air. Indeed scientists now believe that many pterosaurs were gifted air borne predators built to feed while in flight and in fact such controversy has surrounded pterosaurs since the first discovery of one in the early 1700s.

Cosimo Alessandro collini the first natural historian to study the fossil and describe it was unable to classy it it was not until 1791 that the great French anatomist was in fact a flying reptile whose forth finger supported a wing. He named the fossil pterodactylus combining the greek words for wing and finger a few decades later the name pterosaur or winged reptile was adopted to describe the growing list of similar fossils.

In 1873 a remarkable pterosaur specimen came to light that confirmed cuvier’s deduction unlike earlier fossils this new find near the Bavarian town of solnhofen contained delicate wing impressions that the extinct reptile was capable of flight even thought over a thousand pterosaurs specimen are known today such wing impression remain rare. normally only bones survive the fossilization process. But how pterosaurs learnt to fly a matter for disagreement most researchers conclude that pterosaurs are from a small tree dwelling reptile that spent its life jumping between branches this creature would have spread its limbs and used flaps of skin attached to its limbs and body to help it to land gently on the ground over many generation the fourth finger on each of its front arms would have grown longer making the skin surface larger and enabling the animal to guide farther meanwhile the competing  argument holds that developed from two legged reptile that ran along the ground perhaps spreading their arms for balance through gradual growth the front arms would then have evolved into wings. This difficult issue will only be resolved with the discovery of earlier froms of pterosaurs. Its very difficult to say how pterosaurs changed over time because the earliest fossils we have are of pterosaurs whose fourth finger has already transformed into a wing say Fabio dalla Vecchia an Italian researcher in fact the earliest known pterosaurs came from the mountains of northern italy where the has spent years searching for flying reptile these species have shorter wings then later forms but there is evidence that they were skilful fliers capable catching fish over water proof of this has been found in the fossils of Eudimorphodon a 215 million year old pterosaur found near Bergamo italy under a microscope several fish scales can be seen in the abdomen of the specimen the remains of the pterosaurs last meal.

A different but equally impressive slight is the life size model of Quetzaloatlus which stares down at visitors in the Museum of flying in the santa monica California it has a beak the size of a man and wings wider than those of many of the plans exhibited nearby this pterosaur had wings over 11 meters wide making it the largest flying animal ever known.Quetzaloatlus represents the height of pterosaurs evolution unlike smaller pterosaurs it could use natural currents to stay in the air without having to move its wing continuously said paul maccready got larger they discovered the benefit of gliding on air currents making use of a free energy source with their hollow bones these pterosaurs had a very light construction ideal for such activity.As we walked beneath the Quetzalcoatlus model in santa monica maccready pointed out its similarity to sailplanes the most efficient kind of aeroplanes both have long slender wings designed to fly with minimum power during flight sailplane pilots routinely search for places where heat rises from sun baked earth creating hot air currents called thermals would have used thermals as well lazily circling over the river deltas that once covered parts of Texas.

The triumphant reign of pterosaurs ended with this giant flier at the end of the cretaceous period 65 million years ago a meteorite or comet slammed into the earth that calamity and other events wiped out roughly three quarters of all species including all pterosaurs and dinosaurs but before their disappearance pterosaurs enjoyed unequalled success they flew into sunny skies before any other vertebrate for 150 million year they sailed the winds on the strength of a fragile finger what a glorious ride they had.