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| Pterosaurs Temporal range: Upper Triassic – Upper Cretaceous | |
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| Coloborhynchus piscator, an Upper Cretaceous pterosaur. | |
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| Order: | Pterosauria Kaup, 1834 |
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Pterosaurs were flying reptiles which lived in the Mesozoic era at the same time as the dinosaurs. Most pterosaurs were quite small, but in the Upper Cretaceous some grew larger than any other flying animals. The pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus had a wing-span of up to 12 metres (~40 feet).
The first fossils occur in the Upper Triassic, and the group continues until the K/T extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous (220 to 65.5 million years ago). Pterosaurs are the earliest vertebrates known to have evolved powered flight. Their wings were made from a flap of skin between their bodies and a big fourth finger (sometimes called the "wing finger"). The pterosaurs fall into two groups. The earlier Rhamphorhynchoids (e.g. Rhamphorhynchus) had long tails and toothed jaws; The pterodactyloids (e.g. Pterodactylus) had short tails, and many had beaks with no teeth.
