New PBS Eons video: How pterosaurs got their wings
The good folks at PBS Eons
added a new video on the origin of pterosaurs. The following repeats (with added images) my comments on the PBS Eons video on YouTube.
This video is SO WRONG
so many times. The origin of pterosaurs is not ‘foggy.’
(Fig. 1) close to the origin of dinosaurs. Note the tiny hands on Scleromochlus. Note the lack of pedal digit 5 on Scleromochlus. By contrast, pterosaurs had large hands and a specialized pedal digit 5 that had two large phalanges that folded together such that the distal phalanx was dorsal side down, making an impression behind pedal digits 1–4 (Figs. 10, 11). More on this below.
False. Look at all the excellent pterosaur fossils we know of, some with soft tissue.
Peters 2000 introduced the clade Fenestrasauria for pterosaurs + their above named ancestors. These in turn were part of a new clade of lepidosaurs, named Tritosauria, nesting between Rhynchocephalians and Protosquamates published in Peters 2007.
dominated by digit 4. See: http://reptileevolution.com/pterosaur-wings.htm
for Reptilia (=Amniota, see cladogram link below). Not wise to bring up this invalidated clade name.
was attained four times by convergence (two from the genus Dorygnathus, two more from the genus Scaphognathus, Fig. 3). Transitional taxa were all tiny Solnhofen forms (Fig. 3). As in many other clades, phylogenetic miniaturization attended the genesis of derived pterosaurs.
Quetzalcoatlus (Fig. 4) grew so large because it was flightless. All azhdarchids over six-feet-tall had clipped wings (vestigial distal wing phalanges) good for flapping and walking on, not for flying.
All soft tissue shows the short chord wing membrane was stretched between the elbow and wing tip. See: http://reptileevolution.com/pterosaur-wings.htm
when we have excellent samples of every stage? (see links below)
does not require flapping — and gliders do not evolve into flappers (e.g. colugos, squirrels, sugar gliders, etc.)
worked for bats, but they were seeking prey beneath their perches as fingers 3-5 then 2-5 elongated. Pterosaurs only elongated one digit: #4. It made a better wing than bug-in-the-leaf-litter trap.
is Lamarckian, growing bigger wings to catch insects just out of reach for most is not good science.
The valid hypothesis for bird and pterosaur wing evolution is competitive attractiveness during mate selection (think birds-of-paradise) with cosesaur-like creatures flapping and displaying. BTW, both Cosesaurus and Longisquama are preserved with membranes trailing finger 4, (Fig. 6) which folds in the plane of the wing in Longisquama (Fig. 7).
Sharovipteryx (Fig. 8) had membranes (uropatagia) trailing each hind limb. These are reduced in pterosaurs, which continue to use their hind limbs as horizontal stabilizers, their feet as twin rudders, as the flapping forelimbs, closer to the center of gravity, become ever larger, better for display, then for short flapping hops, then for flight.
The scapula of Scleromochlus (Fig. 1) was tiny. It only had to support a tiny forelimb with vestigial fingers.
because it, too was a biped. But that was nothing compared to the larger pelvis of Cosesaurus (Fig. 9), which also had a prepubis, a pterosaurian trait not found on Scleromochlus. The pelvis of Sharovipteryx was larger still.
As in crocs and dinos, and most reptiles, the caudofemoral muscles were pulling the femur. Compare that with the attenuated tail of pterosaurs, Cosesaurus and Sharovipteryx. Only pelvic muscles were pulling the femur.
That’s what we also see in Cosesaurus, Sharovipteryx and Longisquama.
We have Rotodactylus ichnites (hand and footprints, Figs. 10, 11) that match Middle Triassic Cosesaurus in the Early Triassic. These include the impression of pedal digit 5 behind toes 1-4. Nothing else like them in the fossil record.
Scleromochlus was like the modern jerboa, with its tiny vestigial hands, totally inappropriate as a pterosaur ancestor.
Not all pterosaur tracks are quadrupedal. Only derived pterosaurs, those that frequented beaches were. We have bipedal pterosaur tracks (Fig. 12). See references below.
Note the backward pointing manual digit 3 in quad tracks. Note the fusion of four to thirteen sacrals into a sacrum and the elongation of the ilium to anchor large femoral muscles and anchor the increasingly larger sacrum in all pterosaurs. In order to flap, you have to be a biped.
those that underwent phylogenetic miniaturization during the Jurassic. At that time, the fly-size hatchlings of the hummingbird-sized adults (Fig. 13) could not leave the moist leaf litter or risk desiccation until growing to a sufficient size. So they walked around on all fours until attaining flight size.
The extinction of pterosaurs can be attributed to their great size at the end of the Cretaceous. They had no tiny representatives, like they did at the end of the Jurassic, to weather the rapid climate changes and/or seek shelter.
References
that some pterosaur experts don’t want to talk about:
Peters D 2002. A New Model for the Evolution of the Pterosaur Wing – with a twist. Historical Biology 15: 277-301.
Source: https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/2019/09/19/new-pbs-eons-video-how-pterosaurs-got-their-wings/
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