Pterosaurs capture the imagination. Reptilian relatives to dinosaurs, starting some 220 million years ago, pterosaurs soared the ancient skies like today’s albatrosses, seagulls, hawks and eagles. Some had wing spans that rival today’s commercial jets.
Per an article in the journal Nature, pterosaurs may have evolved from tiny critters like Scleromochlus taylori. S. taylori was first discovered in 1907 within 230-million-year-old sediments in Scotland. But rather than soar in the sky, this tiny critter (barely eight inches long) scurried about the land on two legs.