dinosaurs
A Pterodactyl had giant leathery wings and soared over dinosaur heads long ago, but here is a surprise: scientists say it does not actually count as a dinosaur at all.
A pterodactyl-type flying reptile is actually called a pterosaur, and scientists classify it as a separate group from true dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are defined partly by specific hip and leg bone structures that let them stand upright on land, while pterosaurs had an entirely different skeleton built for flight, with wings formed from skin stretched along one hugely elongated finger.
Pterosaurs weren't giant prehistoric birds either, birds evolved from a separate line of small feathered dinosaurs much later, and a pterosaur definitely isn't a baby Tyrannosaurus rex, T. rex was a massive ground-dwelling predator with no wings at all.
Even though pterosaurs lived alongside dinosaurs during the same prehistoric eras and often get grouped together with them in popular imagination, paleontologists keep them in their own separate reptile category entirely.
dinosaurs
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