How did pterosaurs walk?
Like birds and bats, pterosaurs only flew part of the time, spending part of their day on the ground or in trees. Thankfully, we have fossil evidence that can answer this question definitively.
When pterosaurs were first discovered, many people thought they walked on all fours like living bats, on their hind legs like dinosaurs, or with nearly vertical backs like people. Although rare, fossil pterosaur footprints and trackways show that all pterosaurs walked on four limbs on the ground.
This trackway from Arizona was called Pteraichnus saltwashensis by William Stokes in 1957. It shows a pterosaur taking several steps on the edge of an ancient stream. The trackmaker was a medium-sized pterodactyloid that lived about 150 million years ago.
Hand prints
The smaller pointed prints are from the hands. The fingers point backward and the handprints are deeper than the footprints, because the heavy head, torso, and arms caused the hands to sink deeper than the feet into soft sediment.
Foot prints
The larger triangular prints are from the feet. Many pterosaurs had webbed feet like ducks to help propel them while swimming on the surface or diving underwater.
Touchdown
Some fossilized tracks show how pterosaurs landed: they first touched down with their feet before hopping and landing on all fours. Some smaller pterosaurs may have scampered around tree branches, leaving fewer footprints.
