Warm and Humid Climate Conditions Set Stage for Pterosaurs to Take to Skies 220 Million Years Ago

In new research, paleontologists have combined data on the distribution of pterosauromorph fossils (Pterosaur + Lagerpetid) with information on the old climate in the same areas.

Foffa and al. Suggest that the Lagervetides-and the Pterosauromorphs as a whole-are probably from the Southwest Pangea (that is to say modern South America), while the origin of the pterosaurs was predicted to low latitudes in the northern hemisphere. Image credit: James Kuther.

“Pterosaurs were the first vertebrates to develop the power of power, more than 60 million years before the first birds,” said the Paleontologist at the University of Birmingham, Davide Foffa and his colleagues.

“However, our understanding of the early evolution of pterosaurs is hampered by the main temporal and anatomical gaps between these highly modified flying reptiles and their nearest land parents.”

“The fossil register of pterosaurs and their loved ones is notoriously incomplete, and fundamental aspects of their early evolution, such as timing, the area, ecological environments of their initial influence and paleobiology, are still poorly understood compared to other groups of contemporary archosaurs such as dinosaurs.”

In their study, researchers focused on the distribution of two closely related groups, pterosaurs and lagetpetides.

“Living around 240 to 201 million years ago, Lagetpetides were a group of relatively small and arboreal active reptiles,” they said.

“These small terrestrial reptiles are now considered the closest to the closest to the pterosaurs and, reveals the study, was able to tolerate a wider range of climatic conditions than their flying relatives, including the arid areas of the old land mass.”

“This large tolerance has led to a widespread distribution of this group.”

“Pterosaurs seem to have been confined first to the more humid conditions found in the small regions of the ancient world, on the basis of the fossils found in modern Italy and Austria, and the southwest of the United States, all the regions which were at the time close to the equator.”

During the late Triassic, climatic conditions have changed around the world, leading to a general increase in hot and humid conditions outside the equatorial belt.

This has become an opportunity that allowed flying reptiles to spread quickly around the world, especially in high latitude areas such as what is now Greenland and South America.

“The pterosaurs capture the imagination, with the idea of ​​terrifying reptiles dominating the tunes at the time while the dinosaurs wandered around the world,” said Dr. Foffa.

“However, the origins of the pterosaurs are still wrapped in the mystery. Our study adds new information to this puzzle, suggesting that their early evolution during the period of the Triassic in a dominant group may have been favored by the evolution of climates and environments.”

“Climate change is a main cause of change in biodiversity, both today and the geological past,” said Dr. Emma Dunne, paleontologist at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg.

“However, it is only in recent years – with progress in modeling methods – that paleontologists learn to understand how climate change has had an impact on the biodiversity of important fossil groups such as pterosaurs.”

“Taken together, ecological models and fossil data paint a coherent image of the early evolution of pterosaurus,” said Dr. Alessandro Chiarenza, paleontologist at the University College in London.

“Lagervetides have prospered as general practitioners, while pterosaurs, are initially limited to humid tropical niches and perhaps the performance of theft, occupied equatorial peaks.”

“When the world’s climates have changed and the wooded corridors opened, these same wings catapulted them in every corner of the planet and finally transported them through one of the greatest extinctions of the earth.”

“What started as a missing fossil story becomes an example of a manual of how paleoclimat, paleoecology and evolutionary innovation intertwine to enlighten an unequal history that intrigued paleontologists for two centuries.”

The study was published in the journal Ecology and evolution of nature.

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D. Foffa and al. Climatic drivers and paleobiogeography of the Lagetpetides and the first pterosaurs. Nat Ecol Evolpublished online on June 18, 2025; DOI: 10.1038 / S41559-025-02767-8