When it was first described by Cosimo Alessandro Collini in 1784, Pterodactylus wasn’t originally interpreted as a flying reptile. The idea that species could go completely extinct wasn’t fully understood yet, so fossils were assumed to represent things that still existed somewhere in distant unexplored regions. And so, since the oceans seemed like the best place for undiscovered animals to hide, this strange little creature was initially speculated to be aquatic.
Although it was soon properly recognized as a flying animal with some surprisingly mammal-like early reconstructions, the aquatic idea persisted until at least 1830 when Johann Georg Wagler published a restoration of Pterodactylus with huge membranous paddle-like flippers. He even grouped pterosaurs together with ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and monotremes in a proposed vertebrate class called “Gryphi” (literally “gryphons“) and considered them all to be transitional between birds and mammals.
Wagler’s whole classification system seems esoteric and improbable by modern standards, but it’s a fascinating look at a pre-Darwinian “chain of being” sort of mindset where all organisms were thought to exist in a fixed hierarchy with pre-set roles.
Continue reading “April Fools 2025: When Pterosaurs Were Swimming Gryphons”