The Flying Reptile Thread- Anything pterosaur related

A new study by pterosaur specialist Mark Witton suggests that Istiodactylus (formerly known as Ornithodesmus and nicknamed the "duck-billed pterosaur") had a skull much shorter than previously believed, and several traits indicate that it may have been sort of a pterosaurian version of the vulture, feeding on dinosaur carcasses.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0033170

Move over Coloborhynchus... it seems that Moganopterus, found in China, had the largest skull of any toothed pterosaur ever found- what is preserved is 95 cms long; its wingspan has been estimated at 5-7 meters. The jaws were extremely elongated, and the skull was 11.5 times as long as it was tall!

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1755-6724.2012.00658.x/abstract

Found in Las Hoyas, Spain, home of Concavenator and that diminutive lizard I posted about before.
Europejara is the oldest tapejarid and the oldest toothless pterosaur, a record held previously by Eopteranodon. It may have been a fruit eater, as has been suggested for other tapejarids, but no gut content has confirmed this.

Galvasean wrote: »

Ah well, I don't think anyone has credibly argued that pterosaurs were dinosaurs in a very long time... Now there's an interesting one - were pterosaurs ever grouped among the dinosauria?
First one back with a good answer get's a prize.

I'm gonna bet it's Adam too.

If I'm not mistaken, Robert Bakker used to say that pterosaurs (or pterodactyls as he prefers to call them) should be classified along with dinosaurs. I think he even said it in Dinosaur Heressies.
In a way, Bakker's idea of what "dinosaurs" should be would be what we call today Ornithodira, including both dinosaurs and pterosaurs. :>

As for pterosaur fuzz, it is said to be more closely "related" to dinosaur proto-feathers than to actual, mammal-like fur. That's another point in favor of the idea of the common ancestor of dinosaurs (and pterosaurs) having some sort of fuzz as well.
The original hairy pterosaur was Sordes pilosus (hairy devil) found in Central Asia;

Rubecula wrote: »

Looks a stubby fat little fella doesn't he? A bit like a prehistoric sparrow?

by the way I followed the link and read the article. at the bottom of which I found this:

http://pterosaur.net/index.php

Seems a bit specialised but some of you my like it.

I thought everyone knew this site XD Beware of a site that has a very similar name (don´t remember exactly right now) but is written by either infamous David Peters or someone who shares his views, and has lots of misleading info.

Rubecula wrote: »

According to mathematics a bumble bee can't fly, and nothing bigger than a swan can fly and ... and ....

Basically we know these creatures existed and we know they flew, and we know they were fairly successful. We should not be looking at problems in their existence, but looking at why they were as successful as they were. Who knows they may have been hunting T Rex rather than the other way around. I tend to think they were more likely to be like vultures or condors. Possibly hunters but mostly scavengers.

Maybe marabou storks would be a better comparison? Having a more similar beak and body structure, kiiiiinda....





Ah, I almost forgot; here's a video of a Tapejara (mistakenly said to be Quetzalcoatlus in the video description, and also dubbed a "giant dinosaur") taking off and landing. Very different from the pole-vault take off we had been seeing lately.

http://www.livescience.com/24634-a-giant-dinosaur-s-awkward-takeoff-and-landing-video.html

Rubecula wrote: »

I thought came to me as I watched that video (excellent bit of work by the way Adam) Who is to know how far these things actually flew for? A hundred yards or so to get out of danger or vast thousands of miles journeys?

Well, they (azhdarchids) were found in many parts of the world including islands such as Hateg (modern Romania) which would suggest they could fly long distances even over the ocean... I remember reading a study (was it posted here? I don´t remember) about how large pterosaurs were physically capable of travelling incredible distances in very little time.

Pteranodon and nyctosaurs were certainly long distance fliers as they are often found in fossil deposits that were once open sea- they were supossedly a lot like albatrosses and similar birds that spend most of their time on the wing (or on the sea surface) and return to land only to breed.
Nyctosaurs may have been the most albatross-like as they even lack wing fingers meaning they probably walked very little (they also have incredibly long wings for their size).

I wonder if we'll find pterosaurs with unmistakable adaptations to a flightless or nearly-flightless lifestyle one day... I remember reading that there was a specimen of pterosaur whose proportions had made some scientists believe it was flightless but it was later debunked.

Small pterosaur from the late Cretaceous of Canada

Suggests birds did not outcompete smaller pterosaurs as has often been said. I always expected this to be found eventually;

http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/small-bodied-pterosaur-canada-04148.html

Some pterosaurs did care for their young

https://phys.org/news/2017-11-hundreds-pterosaur-eggs-reveal-early.html

"Dracula", the largest, most powerful pterosaur ever found

It was found in Transylvania, hence the nickname. Didn´t suck blood, but it was certainly big enough to eat a full sized human and had bones so robust it was thought to be a dinosaur at first. It belongs to the same family as Quetzalcoatlus and Hatzegopteryx but is said to be a new species, and known from more complete remains (at last!). 

https://www.thelocal.de/20180323/worlds-largest-pterodachtyl-dracula-museum-altmuehltal

Do check out the skull of this beauty!

This Pteranodon was eaten by giant fish

Tooth marks from both a shark (Squalicorax) and a barracuda-like fish (Saurodon) were found on this Pteranodon fossil.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/prehistoric-sharks-chowed-down-pterosaurs-180970476/

Very impressive reconstruction of one of the largest flying animals known!

https://news.umich.edu/giant-pterosaur-flies-into-u-m-museum-of-natural-history/









Here's other Quetzalcoatlus models made by the same company: