A USF professor led a trio of paleontologists who have discovered and named the earliest of the pterodactyloids, a group of flying reptiles that became the dominant winged creatures of the prehistoric world.
USF’s Brian Andres also determined that the pterodactyloids appeared about 5 million years earlier than previously known, about 163 million years ago.
Any finding of the earliest and most primitive member of a group is significant, Andres said.
This one provided new information on the evolution of pterosaurs and allowed the professor to create a “tree of life” outlining the evolutionary relationships of different species.
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