> Pterosaurs terrorized the skies for more than 160 million years until they went extinct alongside the dinosaurs some 66 million years ago.
This should say "non-avian dinosaurs", because dinosaurs made it. The question of why birds survived and pterosaurs didn't is actually a very interesting question.
I'm going to be pedantic as well and say that instead of :
> the flying reptiles that lived during the dinosaur era
they should have written "the flying reptiles that lived during the Mesozoic"
There is an accurate terminology for geological time intervals, why not use it? I know this is an article for the general public, but still, talking about "dinosaur era" dumbs things down needlessly and it's not even correct for the reason you mention.
The big extinction event killed just about everything that could not go on a crash diet for 2 years. At least that was my interpretation of that most recent explanation of what happened.
hows about: the bird isn't cold blooded (though the dinosaur is), but pterosaurs are, so only the birds could settle mountain peaks above dust clouds that rained acid and blocked sun light.
I can't remember the exact limit (I think it's rat dog size) but every large species of went out. Also ammonites surface dwellers went out, nautilus which are deep divers didn't
Makes one think anything that couldn't squeeze into a small localized hideout for a year or two didn't make it.
Not all cold blooded animals went extinct, you know.
Sadly, we may never know why pterosaurs went extinct and not birds. Could be just bad luck. I mean, maybe both groups went through a very narrow bottleneck and only birds survived for no other reasons than particular circumstances.
We have a possible answer in the artice. Because they breeded in big colonies in tropical or subtropical areas. There are a few places in the world if you search for albatrosses or emperor penguins eggs. If this small place is distroyed, is over for the species.
Considering all the other megafauna that died out around then too it'd make sense to me if it was similarly related to size and resource requirements. Smaller varieties of what existed managed to survive easier.
there is another story about a girl that inherited 3 dragon eggs and was destined to rule the 7 kingdoms, oh wait... who else is excited about season 8 ?!
ps: TGIF
> Pterosaurs terrorized the skies for more than 160 million years until they went extinct alongside the dinosaurs some 66 million years ago.
This should say "non-avian dinosaurs", because dinosaurs made it. The question of why birds survived and pterosaurs didn't is actually a very interesting question.