Biology
The Evolutionary Origins and Functional Morphology of Vertebrate Flight Across Pterosaurs, Birds, and Bats
Quick fact
Pterosaurs, birds, and bats each evolved powered flight independently—pterosaurs first, about 228 million years ago; birds next, about 150 million years ago; and bats last, around 50 million years ago. Yet each used a different skeletal structure: pterosaurs flew on a membrane stretched from an elongated fourth finger, birds on feathers attached to a fused hand, and bats on a membrane supported by elongated fingers two through five.
Why this is interesting
When you see a sparrow, a bat, and a fossil of a pterosaur, they all fly. But their wings tell three very different stories of how evolution solved the same problem. What makes each one unique?