Flying Reptiles

The loss of the pterosaur family was a matter of been unable to survive the impact of the KT event.  This is important in terms of understanding the possibility of remnant populations anywhere.  The only possible place they might have partially endured is in South East Asia.

This also strongly suggests that the bulk of modern bird species likely passed through that same bottle neck.  Their greater natural activity may well have led to their swift repopulation of the globe.  Recall also that we do have a small flying reptile in Indonesia.

We have already posted on possible sightings of such remnant populations and their nocturnal nature.  We do have congruent sightings.

We do not seem to have much in the way of smaller types, but the larger types appear to have had the capacity to leave South East Asia.

It all really does beg the question of why this group of creatures actually disappeared at all.  The birds certainly did not.  They would not have been stranded in a refugia in which dropping biodiversity doomed them as surely happened to their dinosaur cousins.  They could escape if they survived the initial shock.

We have already speculated that the Chupacabra is a flying reptile modified to ingest blood.  It is also nocturnal.  It is also likely that the clan of pterosaurs were also nocturnal.  This makes observation unlikely.

A whole flock of fish eating pterosaurs could live in a rock bound high point outside the possibility of discovery and fish only at night.  We would never know and their ability to avoid us would be excellent.  I do not think this is particularly true but as I have long since understood, such a possibility must never be discounted.

The rise and rise of the flying reptiles

by Staff Writers

Bristol UK (SPX) Jul 18, 2011

Extremes in pterosaur morphology. The giant and probably flightless Quetzalcoatlus from the Late Cretaceous of Texas was as tall as a giraffe. The small insectivorous Anurognathus from the Late Jurassic of Germany is seen flying above the artist's head. Drawings by Mark Witton.

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/The_rise_and_rise_of_the_flying_reptiles_999.html

A new study by Katy Prentice, done as part of her undergraduate degree (MSci in Palaeontology and Evolution) at the University of Bristol, shows that the pterosaurs evolved in a most unusual way, becoming more and more specialised through their 160 million years on Earth. The work is published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.

'Usually, when a new group of animals or plants evolves, they quickly try out all the options. When we did this study, we thought pterosaurs would be the same,' said Katy.

'Pterosaurs were the first flying animals - they appeared on Earth 50 million years before Archaeopteryx, the first bird - and they were good at what they did. But the amazing thing is that they didn't really begin to evolve until after the birds had appeared.'

Katy's study was done in conjunction with her supervisors, Dr Marcello Ruta and Professor Michael Benton. They looked at 50 different pterosaurs that ranged in size from a blackbird to the largest of all, Quetzalcoatlus, with a wingspan of 12 metres, four times the size of the largest flying bird today, the albatross.

They tracked how all the pterosaur groups came and went through their history and recorded in detail their body shapes and adaptations.

The new work shows that pterosaurs remained conservative for 70 million years, and then started to experiment with all kinds of new modes of life. After birds emerged and became successful, the pterosaurs were not pushed to extinction, as had been suggested. It seems they responded to the new flyers by becoming larger and trying out new lifestyles.

Many of the new lifestyle adaptations were seen in the pterosaurs skulls, as they adapted to feed on different food sources; some were seed-eaters, many ate fish, and later ones even lost their teeth. The rest of the body also showed a surprising amount of variation between different groups, when considering that the body forms have to retain many features to allow flight.

'Pterosaurs were at the height of their success about 125 million years ago, just as the birds became really diverse too,' said Dr Marcello Ruta. 'Our new numerical studies of all their physical features show they became three times as diverse in adaptations in the Early Cretaceous than they had been in the Jurassic, before Archaeopteryx and the birds appeared.'

Pterosaurs dwindled and disappeared 65 million years during the mass extinction that killed the dinosaurs. In their day they had been a fair match for the birds, and the two groups divided up aerial ecospace between them, so avoiding conflict.

'We're delighted to see a student mastering some tough mathematical techniques, and coming up with such a clear-cut result,' said Professor Michael Benton. 'Palaeontologists have often speculated about the coming and going of different groups of animals through time, but the new study provides a set of objective measurements of the relative success and breadth of adaptation of pterosaurs through their long time on the Earth.'