Flying reptiles are a group of reptiles that have the ability to fly or glide through the air. The most well-known flying reptile is the pterosaur, but there are many other types of flying reptiles, including the extinct dinosaurs known as theropods.
The ability to fly or glide is an adaptation that allows these animals to travel between different areas, escape predators, and find food. Flying also provides a way for these animals to stay cool in hot climates and avoid cold weather.
Most flying reptiles have wings made of skin stretched over a bony framework. Pterosaurs were the only flying reptiles with feathers, which may have helped them to fly better than their leathery-winged cousins.
There are two main types of flight in reptiles: powered flight and gliding. Powered flight requires strong muscles and large wings to provide lift, while gliding simply involves spreading out one’s body to catch air currents and “ride” them like a surfer on waves. Gliding is more common in smaller flying reptiles such as lizards, while larger ones like pterosaurs usually relied on powered flight.
Powered flight evolved independently in several different groups of animals, including birds, bats, and insects (which all have backbones), as well as some groups of lizards (which do not have backbones). The first knownflying reptile was a small lizard-like creature called Icarosaurus siefkeri, which lived about 225 million years ago during the Late Triassic period. It had short legs with webbing between its toes that may have helped it glide from tree to tree.
Icarosaurus was followed by a number of other early gliders such as Draco volans (the “flying dragon”), which lived about 150 million years ago during the Jurassic period. These early gliders were probably capable only of short leaps or flaps from high perches; they could not sustain true powered flight like modern birds and bats can.
Pterosaurs were the first vertebrates (animals with backbones) able to achieve true powered flight; they appeared during the Late Triassic period about 200 million years ago and became extinct 65 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous period along with all other dinosaurs (except for avian dinosaurs such as birds). Pterosaurs had long necks, tails, and bodies with four limbs; their wings consisted of skin stretched over a bony frame much like those of modern bats (although unlike bat wings, pterosaur wings did not contain any cartilage). Each wing ended in a clawed finger that supported its leading edge; this arrangement gave pterosaur wings extra strength for both flapping and soaring flights.
Most pterosaurs were fairly small creatures no bigger than today’s gulls; however, some species such as Quetzalcoatlus northropi reached massive sizes with wingspans exceeding 10 m (33 ft). It is thought that these gigantic creatures may have been too heavyto take off from land without assistance from wind currents or slopes; they would likely have needed open areas such as coasts or lakeshores where they could launch intoflight using updrafts created by winds blowing across water surfaces