Earliest gliding reptile

The earliest known gliding reptile is Coelurosauravus, a basal diapsid reptile that lived approximately 255 million years ago, during the Lopingian Epoch of the Upper Permian Period, in what is now England, Germany and Madagascar. It measured approximately 40 cm long, looked superficially lizard-like, but exhibited a lengthy flattened body that would have been very efficient for gliding purposes, and possessed a pair of lateral gliding membranes composed of skin stretched across bony rods.

Uniquely among gliding reptiles, on each side of its body Coelurosauravus bore a series of newly evolved dermal bones, long and rod-like in form, with skin stretched over them, yielding its pair of gliding membranes.

In other gliding reptiles, the gliding membranes are formed from skin stretched over rib extensions.

Two species of this very distinctive type of gliding reptile are currently recognized.