GS PAPER III: Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life.

Context: A new research about the giraffe-like long necks of dinosaurs’ cousins published.

Pterosaurs

• Pterosaurs are reptiles that are close cousins of dinosaurs, the first animals after insects to evolve powered flight.
• Some pterosaurs were as large as an F-16 fighter jet, while others were as small as a paper airplane.
• Pterosaurs went extinct about 65-66 million years ago (end of the Cretaceous period) and while they did not leave any of their descendants behind, scientists and researchers look for other ways to understand them – through their fossils.

Azhdarchid pterosaurs

• The giant reptiles that flew in the skies nearly 65 million years ago, had necks longer than that of a giraffe (on average a giraffe’s neck is about 6 feet long).
• Now, researchers have reported a new finding about their long necks — that the thin neck vertebrae were supported by an intricate internal structure that is unlike anything seen before.
• Some of these pterosaurs were the largest animals to have flown in the sky, with wingspans greater than 30 feet, which is equivalent to the length of the digestive system in an adult human being.

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-what-does-a-new-research-say-about-the-giraffe-like-long-necks-of-dinosaurs-cousins-7275282/

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