Pterosaurs take to the air
Vertebrates achieve powered flight for the first time, on a wing stretched from a single enormous finger.
- When
- Known to
- ± 3 million years
- Era
- Triassic, Mesozoic
By around 228 million years ago pterosaurs are flying — the first vertebrates to do so under their own power, some 75 million years before birds and 160 million before bats. Their wing is a membrane supported by a hugely elongated fourth finger, an arrangement unlike any other flying animal. Their origins remain obscure; no clear intermediate between a running reptile and a flying one has been found.