The Museum
Exhibits
In-depth essays on pterosaur science — how they flew, how they grew, and what made them unlike any animal alive today.
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Getting into the air
Before birds and bats, pterosaurs were the first flying vertebrates in Earth's history. When pterosaurs were first discovered, most scientists recognized that they were flying animals, but just how they got into the air was a mystery.
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Growing up pterosaur
Pterosaurs, like most other reptiles, started life as an egg, and fossil pterosaur eggs are very rare. Paleontologists have discovered several eggs, embryos, baby pterosaurs and nesting grounds.
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What is a pterosaur?
Not a dinosaur nor a "pterodactyl," pterosaurs were the first vertebrates to perfect powered flight.
Read exhibit → - July 2026
Flashy headdresses
Pterosaur crests came in a spectacular variety of shapes and sizes. A gallery of the flashiest headdresses, most likely display structures to attract mates.
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Love is in the air
Male and female pterosaurs often differed in size and crest. A look at sexual dimorphism through two species of Pteranodon.
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Flying in a fur coat
The best fossils show pterosaurs were covered in hair-like pycnofibers. Sordes pilosus told the whole story, from a dense pelt to a curved fifth toe.
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Drawing a pterosaur
We don't know pterosaur colors for certain, but reptilian heritage and bird-like lifestyles guide the illustrations, from countershading to bright display crests.
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What did pterosaurs eat?
By comparing pterosaur teeth and jaws to living animals, we can deduce their diets, from fishers and insectivores to fruit-eaters and shellfish crushers.
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Pterosaurs on the wing
Pterosaur wings were skin membranes stretched on modified arms. Their shape, compared with birds and bats, reveals how different pterosaurs flew.
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How did pterosaurs fossilize?
Everything we know about pterosaurs comes from fossils, and fossilization is rare. Follow one Pterodactylus from death in a Jurassic sea to the first pterosaur ever studied.
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Reconstructing the past
How a pile of fossil bones becomes a living animal: from field discovery to skeleton to full life reconstruction, told through one Scaphognathus.
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How did pterosaurs walk?
Pterosaurs only flew part of the time. Fossil footprints and trackways show that on the ground, every pterosaur walked on all fours.
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Pterosaur dissection
If we could dissect a pterosaur, what would we find? A tour of the wing finger, membranes, pteroid, and the powerful flight muscles that made them fly.
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Deep breath in, deep breath out
Like birds, pterosaurs had a one-way, flow-through breathing system and air sacs throughout the body, an efficient design that powered an active, flying life.
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Home sweet home
Most pterosaur fossils come from a handful of exceptional sites called Lagerstätten. A look at the lakeside world of the Jiufotang Formation, and what it leaves out.
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Pterosaurs and their eggs
Soft, leathery pterosaur eggs are rare. Two remarkable fossils: a Hamipterus communal nesting ground and a Darwinopterus female preserved with her egg.
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Pterosaurs, not pterodactyls
'Pterodactyl' isn't a word scientists use. Untangling Pterodactylidae, Pterodactyloidea, and Pterosauria, the names that sound alike but mean different things.
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What's in a pterosaur's name?
Scientific names are Latin or Greek, and they nest inside bigger groups. From Kingdom Animalia down to Rhamphorhynchus, how pterosaurs get their names.
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The changing Earth
Through Earth's history, oceans have formed and vanished as continents drifted. From Pangaea to today, the shifting world the pterosaurs lived in.
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