TLS07E02 Pterosaurs in Motion

06/08/22 • 61 min

It’s hopefully not a surprise at this point that pterosaurs were fully powered and capable fliers and that they were not passive gliders or could only get airbourne through jumping off of cliffs. While we do talk about flight here, it’s not like that is all pterosaurs could do so we cover their abilities on the ground (and in trees) and take-off, and then whether or not they could dive, swim and how they floated in the water. It’s a whole cornucopia of pterosaur locomotion through three states of matter (no known plasma locomotion yet) so listen in and enjoy.

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Links:

A section on Pterosaur.net about the abilities of pterosaurs on the ground. http://pterosaur.net/terrestrial_locomotion.php

Another section of Pterosaur.net, but this time on flight http://pterosaur.net/flight.php

An old article by Dave about his work on pterosaurs floating in water https://www.theguardian.com/science/lost-worlds/2013/dec/11/life-on-the-ocean-wave-wasnt-easy-for-pterosaurs

Please support the podcast on patreon

Links:

A section on Pterosaur.net about the abilities of pterosaurs on the ground. http://pterosaur.net/terrestrial_locomotion.php

Another section of Pterosaur.net, but this time on flight http://pterosaur.net/flight.php

An old article by Dave about his work on pterosaurs floating in water https://www.theguardian.com/science/lost-worlds/2013/dec/11/life-on-the-ocean-wave-wasnt-easy-for-pterosaurs

Previous Episode

TLS07E01 Pterodactylus

We’ve run out of dinosaurs (stega what now?) and so thanks to popular demand (well, Dave’s demand) we’re doing (almost) an entire series on pterosaurs!

Everyone’s favourite Mesozoic flying reptiles (well, Dave’s favourite) are getting a series to spread their wings. We start with the namesake of the clade, Pterodactylus itself and something of the early history of pterosaur discoveries and research and the unusual interpretations that were floated for these incredibly strange (then and now) animals.

Please do support us on patreon! patreon.com/terriblelizards

Links:

The original episode we did on pterosaurs. If you’ve not listened to it before (or recently) you might want to revisit that before the rest of this series.

https://terriblelizards.libsyn.com/s03e02-ptserosaurs

Pterosaur.net is a site Dave set up with a bunch of other pterosaur researchers (many of whom often get a mention on TL). It’s a bit dated but there’s a lot of good stuff on here. http://pterosaur.net/index.php

An old blog post of Dave’s including the ‘flying possums’ picture https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2009/07/06/early-pterosaur-reconstructions/

Next Episode

TLS07E03 Azhdarchids

If most people know one thing about pterosaurs (well one correct thing rather than them being flying dinosaurs or bird ancestors) it’s that they got really big. At the top end they hit over 10 m in wingspan and probably over 250 kg, massively bigger than the largest flying birds (living or extinct). And all the real giants belonged to one group – the azhdarchids. These long-necked monsters were a real mystery for decades but a flurry of discoveries and research in recent years means we now have an excellent understanding of their ecology and weird proportions.

Links:

Dave’s blog post about the Canadian azhdarchid he (fairly) recently named https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2019/09/10/welcome-cryodrakon-a-gaint-canadian-azhdarchid-pterosaur/

Darren Naish’s blog about the recent big work finally describing Quetzalcoatlus https://tetzoo.com/blog/2021/12/8/the-quetz-monograph-lives