Word: pterosaurs
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...have webbed feet? (Answer: no.) Did it have a tail? (No.) Could its head have been shaped differently from what was previously thought? (Unresolved: only a few fragments of the skull have been recovered.) Each question sent the paleontologists back to examine the fossilized remnants of the giant pterosaur, which were discovered in 1971 scattered over a half-acre of West Texas arroyo. Says Langston: "The project has refined our observations on the way the pterosaur's joints functioned and how the joints were oriented...
...pterosaur's lack of a tail posed another serious challenge to the engineers; a movable, horizontal tail surface increases the stability and control over pitch (the nose angle, up or down) of a flying object. But MacCready observed that other flying creatures, like the albatross, achieve stability and pitch control by instinctively making small fore and aft movements with their wings. His solution: the latter-day pterosaur will have an onboard computerized autopilot that will effect similar corrections in the attitude of its mechanical wings. That will take some doing. Explains MacCready: "Nature's creatures are very good at active...
...spite of the many challenges, MacCready has little doubt that by recreating the original pterosaur's design, the Q.N. team will succeed. Says he: "Nature does nothing that is stupid. The only purpose of those huge wings would be to fly, and there is a certain amount of evidence that the pterosaur could fly pretty well." Paleontologist Langston is equally optimistic: "We fully expect this model to fly," he says. "If anyone can do it, MacCready can." --By Jamie Murphy. Reported by Jay Branegan/Washington and Melissa Ludtke/Los Angeles
...What did pterosaurs eat? Because pterosaur fossils and footprints have been found primarily in marine and freshwater environments, paleontologists believe many pterosaurs had tastes similar to modern sea- and shorebirds. For example, the ancient salt lakes in southwestern Texas in which Quetzalcoatlus was found contained lots of crustacean burrows but no bones from larger animals like crocodiles that might have fed a carrion eater. Some pterosaurs had beaks shaped like those of spoonbills. Pterodaustro had a mouthful of strainer-like teeth that it probably used to filter microscopic plankton from the water. Pteranodon is thought to have scooped...
What researchers don't know about pterosaurs still far outweighs what they do know, but at least some of the dark corners of pterosaur life are beginning to divulge their secrets. A group of fossils discovered in Chile, for example, hints that pterosaurs may have nested in colonies. Some pterosaurs, like some birds, were crowned with dramatic crests that probably played a role in sexual display. But reconstructing their lost world is made difficult by the vagaries of fossil preservation and by the fact that these winged reptiles were evolutionary dead ends and left no descendants. Pterosaurs, for this reason...