Pterosaurs are often imagined soaring over the heads of dinosaurs, but a new analysis of their fossilized footprints shows that some of these flying reptiles were just as comfortable walking on the ground.
“Footprints offer a unique opportunity to study pterosaurs in their natural environment,” said Robert Smyth, a doctoral researcher at the University of Leicester.
“They reveal not only where these creatures lived and how they moved, but also offer clues about their behavior and daily activities in ecosystems that have long since vanished.”
In the study, Smyth and his colleagues uncovered three distinct types of pterosaur footprints, each shedding light on different lifestyles and behaviors.
By linking footprints to specific groups, they now have a powerful new way to study how these flying reptiles lived, moved, and adapted to different ecosystems across time.
“Finally, 88 years after first discovering pterosaur tracks, we now know exactly who made them and how,” said Dr. David Unwin, also from the University of Leicester.
Perhaps the most striking discovery comes from a group of pterosaurs called neoazhdarchians which includes Quetzalcoatlus, with a 10 m wingspan one of the largest flying animals ever to have existed.
Their footprints have been found in coastal and inland areas around the world, supporting the idea that these long-legged creatures not only dominated the skies but were also frequent ground dwellers, inhabiting the same environments as many dinosaur species.
Some of these tracks are present right up until the asteroid impact event, 66 million years ago, which led to the extinction of both pterosaurs and dinosaurs.
One group of pterosaurs, ctenochasmatoids, known for their long jaws and needle-like teeth, left behind tracks most commonly found in coastal deposits.
These animals likely waded along muddy shores or in shallow lagoons, using their specialized feeding strategies to catch small fish or floating prey.
The abundance of…
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