杏吧原创

Baby pterosaurs could probably fly within hours or even minutes of hatching. Their wings were already ideally suited for powered flight, according to a new analysis of fossil wing bones.

鈥淲e鈥檙e not the first people to say this,鈥� says at the University of Southampton in the UK. 鈥淭he main strength of our study is it鈥檚 combining several different lines of evidence.鈥�

Pterosaurs were flying reptiles related to the dinosaurs, and which lived alongside them. They include Quetzalcoatlus which, with its 10-metre wingspan, was the largest flying animal known to have existed.

But even the largest pterosaurs didn鈥檛 start out that way. They hatched from eggs, at which point even the largest species were no bigger than a modern gull.

Palaeontologists have argued for years over how soon young pterosaurs could fly. Some have argued that they were incapable of flight when they first hatched, like most modern birds, and only took to the air after many weeks or even months. But others have put forward evidence that they could fly almost immediately 鈥� like some .

Naish and his colleagues examined the fossilised bones of three young Pterodaustro guinazui聽and one young Sinopterus dongi 鈥� two very distantly related pterosaur species. They examined the strengths of the baby pterosaurs鈥� wing bones, as well as their wingspans and other measurements. They found the baby pterosaurs had ideal wings for powered, flapping flight.

This contradicts the claim that baby pterosaurs were flightless. 鈥淚 would say this demolishes that,鈥� says Naish. It also doesn鈥檛 support a 鈥渃ompromise鈥� hypothesis that baby pterosaurs could glide without active flapping. 鈥淲e also refute that,鈥� says Naish.

Naish suspects instead that baby pterosaurs of all or most species could stand up, walk and fly very early in life. 鈥淢y gut feeling is minutes, but certainly within hours of hatching,鈥� says Naish.

What鈥檚 more, the baby pterosaurs seem to have been adapted to a different style of flight compared to the adults. Their short wings were ideal for flying through cluttered environments like forests, whereas the bigger adults needed more open spaces.

For Naish, this implies that they lived in different places and ate different prey 鈥� perhaps allowing a single species to dominate multiple environments over the animals鈥� lifespans, as has been suggested for Tyrannosaurus rex. If that is true, it means the adult pterosaurs can鈥檛 have done much parenting. In most pterosaur species, the babies 鈥渄on鈥檛 have anything to do with adults until they become [about] half-sized鈥�, suggests Naish.

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