When pterosaurs thrived, the world would have looked like a very different place. The climate was warmer, almost subtropical. And the Solnhofen archipelago in modern-day Bavaria, Germany, was home to various flying reptiles.
In the late Jurassic period, 145 million years ago, they would have lived alongside a feathered dinosaur named Alcomonavis as well as a small predator called Compsognathus. But for the most part, the archipelago was home to a plethora of these ancient flying beasts. One species in particular, known as Petrodactyle wellnhoferi, would have stood out from the rest.