Comments on: Pterosaurs by Mark Witton https://gregladen.com/blog/2014/09/15/pterosaurs-by-mark-witton-2/ Thu, 26 Mar 2015 13:47:31 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.6 By: nick012000 https://gregladen.com/blog/2014/09/15/pterosaurs-by-mark-witton-2/#comment-481916 Thu, 26 Mar 2015 13:47:31 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=20317#comment-481916 Out of curiosity, I recently saw an artist’s rendition of a “fatbird” feathered T-Rex, and I was wondering how possible that that image might be? Would the feathers’ shafts have to be too thick to really be viable, for the T-Rex to be that fluffy?

]]> By: This week in science: Blue nation ahead? - Political Truths https://gregladen.com/blog/2014/09/15/pterosaurs-by-mark-witton-2/#comment-481915 Sat, 20 Sep 2014 13:44:49 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=20317#comment-481915 […] We know that pterosaurs got huge near the end of the Cretaceous. There’s even some, albeit scant evidence, for a variant that might have been more like an air-whale. But the ones we have decent remains from got pretty damn big. […]

]]> By: Lars https://gregladen.com/blog/2014/09/15/pterosaurs-by-mark-witton-2/#comment-481914 Wed, 17 Sep 2014 22:02:42 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=20317#comment-481914 I don’t mean to quibble, but I’m reasonably sure that there are no giraffes so colossal as the one shown in the figure here.

]]> By: Kevin https://gregladen.com/blog/2014/09/15/pterosaurs-by-mark-witton-2/#comment-481913 Tue, 16 Sep 2014 16:30:54 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=20317#comment-481913 “Pterosaurs are part of the large taxonomic group that includes the lizards, dinosaurs, and birds, but they branched off within that group prior to the rise of the latter two. So, they are not dinosaurs, but cousins of dinosaurs. You can call them flying lizards, but not flying dinosaurs.”

Do you mean “… includes the crocodilians, dinosaurs, and birds”? Pterosaurs are archosaurs along with all of those, and they’re also ornithodirans along with the dinosaurs and birds, but not crocodilians. Lizards and snakes had a common ancestor with the archosaurs, but I don’t think that archosaurs evolved from squamates…. though I could be wrong about that. Pterosaurs aren’t flying dinosaurs, but I don’t think that they can be called flying lizards either, even cladistically speaking.

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