Птерозавры — разнообразная, процветавшая в своё время группа животных с непростой и интересной историей. И хотя всё их строение отражает прежде всего приспособление к активному полёту, они также отлично ходили, бегали и плавали. Летающие ящеры были распространены по всей Земле. Они добывали необходимое для активного образа жизни пропитание самыми разными способами, правда, было немало желающих полакомиться ими самими. Они общались между собой, демонстрировали сложное брачное поведение, болели и старели. В книге дан общий обзор их строения, физиологии и палеобиологии, затем, группа за группой, рассматривается их разнообразие, а в конце приводится краткий обзор их эволюционной истории и причин вымирания.

Для широкого круга читателей.

A whole host of people have helped steer this book to completion, and I’m too close to my word count to thank them in the manner they deserve. Each of the following contributed to the process of assembling this book, and I’m extremely grateful to all of them. In no particular order, tremendous thanks to Brian Andres, Chris Bennett, Richard Butler, Luis Chiappe, Laura Codorniú, Stephen Czerkas, Fabio Dalla Vecchia, Ross Elgin, Erno Endenberg, Mike Habib, Dave Hone, Elaine Hyder, Martin Lockley, Bob Loveridge, Lü Junchang, Carl Mehling, Markus Moser, Darren Naish, Attila Ősi, Kevin Padian, Ryan Ridgely, Rico Stecher, Jose Sanz, Lorna Steel, David Unwin, Andre Veldmeijer, Larry Witmer, Ewan Wolff, and the nice people at the London Natural History Museum Picture Library, for supplying advice, thoughts, or imagery for use here.

Despite being studied for over 200 years, the posture, locomotion, paleobiology, and phylogeny of pterosaurs are still poorly understood due to lack of well-preserved, three-dimensional specimens. In this paper we investigate the posture, locomotion, and paleoecology of pterosaurs based on anatomy and biomechanics: how they walked, how they fl ew, and how they lived. We want to understand how evolution has adjusted their skeletal structures and movements to maximize performance.

The dragon blinked in the fierce light of the sun as it emerged from the clouds and banked hard, its tremendous wings arching under the load. Reflected in a massive dark eye, the world below slowly tilted into view. Vast herds of dinosaurs were strung out across a dusty yellow-orange plain, occasionally gathered in knots where they had stopped to feed on patches of stunted vegetation. Then came marshes and— the dragon focused— a long, still, clear-blue lake.

Pterosaur remains have been found by humans for millennia and may have helped form the basis for belief in mythical beasts, including winged dragons. In the prescientific West, the claim in the Genesis creation story that the planet and all life were formed just two or three thousand years before the great Egyptian pyramids were built hindered the scientific study of fossils. The discovery and subsequent detailed illustration of the virtually complete and articulated skull and skeleton of the small Pterodactylus found in fine-grained Lagerstätte sediments of Bavaria in the late 1700s began modern pterosaur paleozoology decades before the discovery of teeth and a few bones led to the recognition of land-bound dinosaurs in the 1820s. The strange pterodactyl skeleton posed a major problem for early science because it was still thought that major extinctions had not occurred. The creature had a hyperelongated single finger, which was radically different from the feathery airfoils of birds and also uite distinctive from the multifingered wings of bats. Nor did the very long, spike-toothed jaws belong to either group. <...>

Pterosaurs (meaning ‘winged lizard’) were the first vertebrates to fly (figure 1) and are therefore often referred to as ‘flying reptiles’. However, like the dinosaurs, they are only remotely related to modern reptiles. For the same reason, it is not correct to refer to pterosaurs as ‘flying dinosaurs’.

Описан спинной позвонок птерозавра Azhdarchidae indet. из отложений рыбушкинской свиты (верхний мел, нижний кампан) местонахождения Белое Озеро в Саратовской области. На теле позвонка имеется гипапофиз. В основании невральной дуги имеется крупное отверстие пневматизации. Позвонок может принадлежать Volgadraco bogolubovi Averianov, Arkhangelskii et Pervushov, 2008, описанному из рыбушкинской свиты местонахождения Широкий Карамыш-2 в Саратовской области.