Pterosaur thread
>>5083373
>>5083373No awe for the first and largest animals that ever fkew?
Soooo... what is the point of this?
>>5083387Sexual display
>>5083387Stylin' on crestlets
>>5083387Cocky scientists not so cocky when it's time to give a huge sail to that huge crest
>>5083392giwtwm
>>5083396Actually the smooth bone of the crest indicates it probably didn't have a sail
I want to see these fellas back Jurassic Park style more than dinosaurs. Absolutely bizarre creatures.
>>5083446same
>>5083380Slow board please understand.Also most people don't even bother with paleo threads anymore because they know the two schizos are going to ruin it anyway
>>5083503I hope that doesn't happen here. Most schizos are about dinosaurs
>>5083380>first
>>5084153Okay, first vertebrates to fly
>>5084153insect nigger
These guys look like they'd fall over.
>>5084684It's the magic of having a lightweight skull. Plus a recent study indicates it might have had aerodynamic advantages
>>5083373You should watch Pterosauric planet 1 and 2.
Something I think about sometimes with pic related is if they kept evolving like primates until large, ground-dwelling pterosaurs like gorillas or bipedal pterosaurs carrying tools that eventually built their own civilizations like humans became a thing. We could've lived in the pongodactyl timeline.
>>5083446If we could bring back any single creature, other than Deinonychus, I think I'd like to see hatzegopteryx or another large azdarchid. I would love seeing these guys on every coastline
>>5087205Indeed. The only speculative evolution work with that seems to be Kaimere's tapejarids
>>5083373i love dinosaurs
>>5090079not dinosaurs
>>5090995They are
>>5084153"Coincidence? I think not."
>>5083373me and my foid (she doesn't exist)
>>5090995They're big lizards. Same difference really.
>>5090079>>5090995>>5091050>>5092177barely related schizo tangent: I personally believe the current theories of pterosaur origin are complete bull, with scleromoclus being an awful model for flight in pterosaurs. To that end, it would also imply we're not really sure where they fit in avemetatarsalia. I personally would not be surprised if it turned out they actually WERE some early offshoot of dinosaurs. Hell, people have been considering Silesaurs as possibly being Dinosaurs recently, so shakeups of early archosaur relations are not unheard of. I look forward to it.
>>5083373how did they do it
love the guy just nonchalantly holding that pose. "eyy, i'm walkin' here!"
>>5083387>why?i mean if you are gonna tell a lie might as well make it a big one
Something I never see anyone mentioning that always bothered me is how often pterosaurs are depicted in popular media with bird-like attributes like bipedalism and hunting with their hind limbs like hawks
>>5094381that's because for an extremely long time we had no idea how they walked or stood at all. Up until about a decade ago there were papers going back and forth about whether pterosaurs were bipedal or quadrupedal, and how they took off from the ground. We NOW know they're quadrupeds that used a quad-launch, but that was not clear for ages. Some fringe theories were that they couldn't even walk, lmao. And we barely had any pterosaur trackways for over a century, and sometimes we didn't even know they were from pterosaurs because of how weird their footprints and gaits are. So it's pretty natural for people to just fill in the blanks with bird-like features, especially in normie media. Normie media still doesn't even know dinosaurs are warm blooded sometimes.
Weird-ass monsters, they were.
bring these guys back, the rest can burn in hell
>>5092296The kinds of things you're saying are just people who don't know what they're talking about trying to preach on the subject. The Silesaurids were always early Ornithischians. It's just a few bullheaded paleontologists that prevented people from accepting it. And pterosaurs are very clearly not closely related to dinosaurs. They never have been. How they got lumped in that way is completely beyond me. They have almost none of the synapomorphies of Archosaurs. They have different teeth, different cervical vertebrae number, they have no mandibular fenestra, even in their earliest attested forms. Though people have tried to imagine them from shattered jaws. And there's some evidence they may have had more than three claws on their front limbs. They do share some things in common with other Archosauromorphs (god forgive me for using cladist terminology), such as an air sac system and thecodot dentition. Any kind of fuzzy integument on pterosaurs is probably pure imagination and consists of decaying actinifibrils. The only certain integument we have any evidence for is scales from their heels and what looks like naked, leathery skin from wing membranes.
>>5096575>my ancestor
>>5096597>Any kind of fuzzy integument on pterosaurs is probably pure imagination and consists of decaying actinifibrils.lol
>>5083373I do not believe in this.
>>5096597>>5096804stupid people
>>5096804>Scientists lyin' and gettin' me pissed!
>>5096804ok
>>5083396What happens if it catches the wind with that thing while flying?
>>5100364Nothing because it didn't have a sail
>>5100364It would be extremely painful.
>>5096597Pterosaurs are stem archosaurs, and they had proto feathers because proto feathers is a trait found in stem archosaurs
Fascinating creature.
>>5083373How come not a single one of these motherfuckers survived the meteor? Were there no small ones by the late cretaceous? There were but they got mogged by birds in the aftermath? None of them occupied niches conductive to surviving?
>>5101465Best theory I've seen regarding that is the idea birds had burrowing species in their ranks and pterosaurs didn't.
>>5101465Bad luck I guess. Most birds were also obliterated by the KT event. It doesn't help that the initial stages of the asteroid impact had falling molten rock rain, which would take out most flyers
