SCIENCE

‘Sexy’ pterosaur tail should have been nightmare for flying. How did it work?


The first pterosaurs took flight during the age of dinosaurs thanks to a sail-like tensioning system, a new study has found.

Early pterosaurs — informally called “pterodactyls” — had long tails with thin, leaf-shaped flaps of tissue on the end called vanes. This vane would have compromised their flight if it were floppy and fluttered like a flag, so paleontologists knew it was stiff, but they didn’t know how the vane maintained stiffness until now.


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