Types of Flying Dinosaurs - Names and Images

Author: Peter Berry
Date Of Creation: 18 February 2021
Update Date: 28 June 2024
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Dinosaurs were the dominant animals during the Mesozoic. Over the course of this era, they have diversified enormously and spread across the entire planet. Some of them dared to colonize the air, giving rise to different types of flying dinosaurs and finally to birds.

However, the huge flying animals commonly called dinosaurs are not actually dinosaurs, but other types of flying reptiles. Want to know more? Don't miss this PeritoAnimal article about flying dinosaur types: names and images.

Flying Dinosaur Classes

During the Mesozoic, many types of dinosaurs populated the entire planet, becoming the dominant vertebrates. We can group these animals into two orders:


  • Ornithischians(Ornitischia): they are known as the dinosaurs with “hip of birds”, because the pubic branch of their pelvic structure was oriented in the caudal direction (towards the tail), as it happens in today's birds. These dinosaurs were herbivores and very numerous. Their distribution was worldwide, but they disappeared at the boundary between Cretaceous and Tertiary.
  • Saurischians(Saurischia): are dinosaurs with "lizard hips". The pubic branch of saurischians had a cranial orientation, as occurs in modern reptiles. This order includes all kinds of carnivorous dinosaurs as well as many herbivores. Although most of them went extinct in the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, a few survived: birds or flying dinosaurs.

Enter this article to learn how dinosaurs became extinct.


Characteristics of Flying Dinosaurs

The development of flight capability in dinosaurs was a slow process during which adaptations in today's birds emerged. In chronological order of appearance, these are the characteristics of flying dinosaurs:

  • three fingers: Hands with only three functional fingers and pneumatic bones, which are much lighter. These resources emerged about 230 million years ago, in the suborder Theropoda.
  • swivel handles: thanks to a half-moon-shaped bone. The known Velociraptor it had this characteristic, which allowed it to hunt prey with a swipe of the arm.
  • Feathers (and more): reversal of the first toe, long arms, reduced number of vertebrae, short tail and appearance of feathers. Representatives of this stage could soar and perhaps even flap their wings for a quick flight.
  • coracoid bone: appearance of the coracoid bone (joining the shoulder to the thorax), caudal vertebrae fused to form the bird's tail, or pygostyle, and prehensile feet. Dinosaurs that had these characteristics were arboreal and had a powerful flap of wings to fly.
  • alula bone: appearance of the alula, the bone resulting from the fusion of atrophied fingers. This bone improved maneuverability during flight.
  • Short tail, back and sternum: tail and back shortening, and keeled sternum. These are the characteristics that gave rise to the modern flight of birds.

Types of Flying Dinosaurs

Flying dinosaurs have included and include (in this case, birds) carnivorous animals, as well as many types of herbivorous and omnivorous dinosaurs. Now that you know the characteristics that, little by little, gave rise to birds, let's see some types of flying dinosaurs or primitive birds:


Archeopteryx

It's a genre of primitive birds who lived during the Upper Jurassic, about 150 million years ago. They are considered a transition form between the flightless dinosaurs and the birds of today. They were no more than half a meter long, and their wings were long and feathery. However, it is believed that they they could only glide and they may have been tree climbers.

Iberosomesornis

One flying dinosaur who lived during the Cretaceous, about 125 million years ago. It was no more than 15 centimeters long, had prehensile feet, pygostyle and coracoids. Its fossils were found in Spain.

Ichthyornis

It was one of the first birds with teeth discoveries, and Charles Darwin considered it one of the best proofs of the theory of evolution. These flying dinosaurs lived 90 million years ago, and were about 43 centimeters in wing span. Externally, they were very similar to today's seagulls.

Differences between dinosaurs and pterosaurs

As you can see, the flying dinosaur types had nothing to do with what you probably imagined. This because the great flying reptiles from the Mesozoic were not really dinosaurs but pterosaurs, but why? These are the main differences between the two:

  • the wings: the wings of pterosaurs were membranous expansions that connected its fourth finger to its hind limbs. However, the wings of flying dinosaurs or birds are the modified forelegs, meaning they are bony.
  • the ends: Dinosaurs had their limbs located under their bodies, supporting their full weight and allowing them to maintain a rigid posture. Meanwhile, pterosaurs had their limbs extended to either side of the body. This difference is due to the fact that the pelvis is very different in each group.

Types of Pterosaurs

Pterosaurs, mistakenly known as flying dinosaurs, were actually another type of reptile that coexisted with real dinosaurs during the Mesozoic. As many pterosaur families are known, we'll just look at some of the most important genres:

Pterodactyls

The best known types of flying reptiles are the pterodactyls (Pterodactylus), a genus of carnivorous pterosaurs that fed on small animals. Like most pterosaurs, pterodactyls had a crest on the head that was probably a sexual claim.

Quetzalcoatlus

the huge Quetzalcoatlus are a genus of pterosaurs belonging to the Azhdarchidae family. This family includes the Largest Known Types of Flying "Dinosaurs".

You Quetzalcoatlus, named after an Aztec deity, could reach a wing span of 10 to 11 meters and were likely predators. it is believed that they were adapted to terrestrial life and quadrupedal locomotion.

Rhamphorhynchus

The ranphorrhine was a relatively small pterosaur, with almost six feet of wingspan. Its name means "snout with beak", and is due to the fact that it has a snout ending in beak with teeth at the apex. Although its most striking feature was undoubtedly its long tail, often depicted in cinema.

Other examples of pterosaurs

Other types of "flying dinosaurs" include the following genera:

  • Preondactylus
  • Dimorphodon
  • Campylognathoides
  • Anurognathus
  • Pteranodon
  • Arambourgian
  • Nyctosaurus
  • ludodactylus
  • Mesadactylus
  • Sordes
  • Ardeadactylus
  • Campylognathoides

Now that you know all kinds of flying dinosaurs out there, you might also be interested in this other PeritoAnimal article about prehistoric marine animals.

If you want to read more articles similar to Types of Flying Dinosaurs - Names and Images, we recommend that you enter our Curiosities section of the animal world.