Rhamphorhynchoids were mostly small, with broad wings,
short necks and skulls, a large rear wing and weren’t
very good on the ground, and generally had long tails.
Pterodactyloids were, in general the opposite - big, with
narrow wings, long necks and skulls, had a smaller rear
wing, short tails and were much better on the ground.
Unfortunately, few pterosaurs lived close to the places
where fossils tend to form. Their bones were extremely
fragile and so didn’t preserve well, meaning pterosaur
fossils are often incomplete. However, some soft tissue
preserved in a few fossils can tell us about beaks, wings,
and most importantly pterosaurs were covered in a sort
of reptilian ‘hair’ that made them furry!
Dimorphodon
Quetzalcoatlus
Pterosauria
Pterosaurs were not technically dinosaurs! The word
Pterosaur comes from the Greek word ‘pterosauros’,
meaning ‘winged lizard’. The first pterosaur fossil was
described by the Italian naturalist Cosimo Collini [