Did giant pterosaurs vault aloft like vampire bats?

If giant pterosaurs – the dinosaur-era, giraffe-sized winged reptiles – tried to fly like birds, they could not have got off the ground. Yet why would flightless pterosaurs retain giant wings instead of evolving vestigial ones like the ostrich?

The answer, according to Mark Witton of the University of Portsmouth, UK, is that pterosaurs didn't fly like birds. "We need to appreciate that pterosaurs had their own unique mechanisms of achieving flight," he says.

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