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Highlights

• Humeral fractures in neonatal Pterodactylus suggest injuries sustained during flight

• Injuries were caused by the storms that buried these and numerous other small pterosaurs

• Catastrophic storm sampling explains marked juvenile preservation bias in Solnhofen

• Large pterosaurs are rare or fragmentary due to low background attritional sampling

It is entirely reasonable to acknowledge that the sum of all known pterosaur fossils remains insufficient to answer many of our most fundamental questions. The fossil record was not assembled for our benefit. Interpretations drawn from it must therefore be made cautiously, especially when comparing assemblages shaped by differing preservational pathways, lest we mistake artifacts of preservation for genuine evolutionary signals.