Among vertebrates, pterosaurs were the first to achieve powered flight. Early pterosaurs have tail vanes — similar in appearance to the frills seen on some lizards — but later species lost this feature. Whether the tail vanes helped in flight or served a display purpose is an open question among paleontologists. One group, in a recent pre-print, studied the vanes’ fossilized interior structure and found a cross-linked lattice that provided internal tension to the vanes. That means the vanes could potentially be held stiff, even in the face of aerodynamic forces that would cause untensioned surfaces to flutter. The result suggests that the tail vanes could have helped early fliers steer, even if evolution later moved that function (along with display) to other parts of the body. (Image credit: Sviatoslav-SciFi; research credit: N. Jagielska et al.; via jshoer)
Pterosaur Tail Vanes
