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.
Little Flaplings
The skeletons of embryonic pterosaurs still in their eggs, as well as newly hatched babies, show that the limb bones and joints were normally strong and fully developed at the time of hatching. Unlike most birds, most pterosaurs were born ready to fly, and may have been able to get into the air in the first few hours or days of life. Hamipterus seems to have been an exception: dozens of fossils show its young were relatively helpless.
Nesting Ground
There are few known pterosaur nesting grounds, and like many migratory birds, at least some pterosaurs nested in large numbers on isolated islands or beaches, far from predators. The fossil nesting ground of Hamipterus was preserved when their lakeshore nests were swept away by flood waters, killing large numbers of adults and fossilizing more than two hundred eggs.
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