Showing posts with label Pterosaurs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pterosaurs. Show all posts

Saturday, July 19, 2008

No They're Not Dinosaurs

Even if the "official news sources" are calling them that. Quetzalcoatlus was a Pterosaur, and the biggest one at that. Among the more interesting facts about these animals was that the whole beast only weighed a couple of hundred pounds. The bones were hollow, and thin as paper. There is still some debate as to the lifestyle they pursued; Darren Naish has recently proposed that they (or at least similar species) were
...stork- or ground hornbill-like generalists, foraging in diverse environments for small animals and carrion.
See here for details.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

But Would They Have Made Good Pets?

The Liaoning fossil beds in North East China have produced another amazing specimen:

A beautifully preserved fossil of a tiny pterosaur suggests that the giant pterodactyls that roamed the skies during the late Cretaceous period may have come from much smaller, tree-dwelling ancestors.

Interesting if this little critter really was arboreal (a few on the Dinosaur mailing list have expressed doubt), as on some accounts these beasts were the ancient equivalent of shore-birds, and one theory of their relative decline re. birds says that the simplicity and "two-dimensionality" of a shore-line environment gave them a brain too simply wired to compete effectively with their feathery brethren.