Pterosaurs began their existence on the Earth in Triassic period, now it is not known for sure from which animals they evolved, presumably, from small carnivore dinosaurs; one of the earliest know flying reptiles is a eudimorphodon. Name of species means “True dimorpho teethed” or “Having two types of teeth“; at front sides of jaws they had fangs, at middle and back sides small teeth with 5 cusps, such teeth are specialized for hunting on fishes and insects. They differ animal very much from all later pterosaurs, so eudimorphodon is not their ancestor, but a spin off branch from main one. Their wingspan was 1 m, length was the same, mass was around 10 kg; they lived in late Triassic period around 210 – 200 millions of years ago.
For the first time eudimorphodon skeleton were found in Italy in 1973 by explorer Mario Pandolfi near Bergamo city. Maybe on ends of tails of animals diamond-shaped flap were located, like later rhamphorhynchus had, but for now there is no exact data. Teeth of eudimorphodons came into tight contact, when jaws closed, on some of them there are wearing and friction traces, which means, that they were able to chew food and not only ate it whole or in a large chunks. Currently a couple of animals skeletons were found at different locations of the world, including Greenland and Texas ( USA ), which makes them one of the most studied pterosaurs, initially found in Italy.
