What is a Pterosaur?

Most of you have probably heard about the so-called "pterodactyls," the flying creatures that lived during the time of the dinosaurs. Like most of us, you might not know exactly what a pterodactyl, more properly known as a pterosaur, is. Is it a bird? A bat? A dinosaur? Possibly even an insect? Or a distinct group of archosaurs that are thought to be fairly closely related to both dinosaurs and crocodilians, but scientists still aren't 100% positive how they fit into the reptilian family tree? Well, if you were thinking the last option, then lo and behold: you're right! Although the pterodactyls would have soared through the skies much like birds, bats, and even some insects of today, they would have been a distinct group altogether. They are also not quite dinosaurs: as the last option says, no one knows quite yet how exactly they fit in!

Pyg perches next to the skeleton of one of the most famous pterosaurs, Pteranodon, at the Morrison Natural History Museum in Colorado!  

Another misconception you might be suffering under is what these extinct flying reptiles are actually called. Although most people call them pterodactyls, that isn't quite the correct term for them. Scientifically, these creatures are known as the pterosaurs. The name pterodactyls actually originates from a small pterosaur that is commonly found in the fine-grained Solnhofen fossil beds in Germany. Known as Pterodactylus, several hundred of these little reptiles have been discovered!

Pyg checks out a cast of one of the more famous Pterodactylus specimens from Solnhofen!

The Solnhofen quarries are world renknowed for their excellent fossils. Not only have a large number of Pterodactylus specimens been uncovered there, but it was from these quarries that the very first Archaeopteryx was uncovered in 1861.  This primitive bird is one of the missing links between birds and dinosaurs, as it shares many features in common with both groups (such as feathers with birds and hand claws and teeth with dinosaurs). Other famous and important animals to come out of the Solnhofen Quarries include numerous crustaceans, insects, and even a small crocodile called Alligatorellus!

Pyg learns more about both the Pterodactylus specimen from above (left), but also about Archaeopteryx (right)!  This cast is of the best specimen of this primitive bird, and was discovered in 1877!  (The original specimen was, not the cast).

Part of the reason why the Solnhofen Quarry is so darn special is the extremely fine-detail preserved in the fossils. As I just mentioned in the previous paragraph, feathers have been discovered with Archaeopteryx specimens. Feathers, much like skin, hair, and other soft-tissues, rarely fossilize. As the science of paleontology slowly evolves, just like the animals it studies, paleontologists become better and better equipped to deal with, not to mention find, these soft-tissue elements of these extinct animals. More and more dinosaurs are being discovered with not only skin, but oftentimes feathers, such as Microraptor, an animal fairly closely related to Velociraptor of Jurassic Park fame; Dilong, an ancient ancestor of Tyrannosaurus rex; and the bizarre therizinosaurs; amongst many others.

And it's not just feathers that fossilize, either. Wing membranes, composed of a flap of skin, are being discovered more and more frequently when it comes to pterosaurs. When it comes to Pterodactylus, scientists have such a large sample size that they are able to reconstruct much of the soft-tissue anatomy of this particular pterosaur! Scientists also have a very thorough growth series for this particular pterosaur, with individuals ranging from hatchlings, just a few days to a few weeks old, all the way to very old individuals with wingspans of around five feet, which, for a Pterodactylus, is very hefty indeed!

Although we've talked a lot about Pterodactylus, there are many other fascinating pterosaurs! I've taken a recent interest in pterosaurs, but before we dive on in to a wide variety of posts, I wanted to provide a brief introduction! Remember, this is a VERY brief introduction. For a more thorough introduction to pterosaurs, consult a book or something, or check back in the future as we learn more about pterosaurs! Don't hold me to it, but I feel like sometime in the near future, I will be talking about Dimorphodon and the anurognathids! Check back soon!

Treuchtlingen on Dwellable

23-Fact Tuesdays: Polar Bear Celebrations, Eccentric Artists, and Unicorn Horns!

Welcome to our third "23-Fact Tuesday" which are never on Tuesdays.  I believe that this one is actually closer to a Tuesday than we ever have been before, however, so that's got to count for something!  I'd also like to thank Mona Kamath for her help on this post!  Enjoy!

1.  Despite the fact that polar bears are generally solitary, they gather annually in places like the city of Churchill in Manitoba, Canada, where they congregate together prior to the freezing of the sea ice.  When they gather in groups like this, the group is called a "Celebration." 

2.  The eccentric and incredibly odd (though undeniably gifted) artist Salvador Dalí had a pet ocelot named Babou.  He also had a pretty righteous mustache, if I do say so myself.

3.  In 1663, the German scientist Otto von Guericke "reconstructed" the mythical unicorn using the fossilized bones of a mammoth, a woolly rhinoceros, and the horn of a narwhal.  This reconstruction managed to legitimately fool some people, including Gottfriend Wilhelm Leibniz, the famous German philosopher and mathematician, who reportedly was dubious about the existence of the unicorn prior to this "reconstruction," but was convinced by Guericke's "fossil."  

4.  From wing tip to wing tip, Hatzegopteryx measured an astonishing 46 feet!

5.  Gasosaurus, a dinosaur that was described in the year 1985, was named "Gas-Lizard" because it was discovered by a Chinese gas-mining company.

6.  In order to hover and move in any direction, the hummingbird, often nick-named "nature's helicopter" moves its wings in a figure-eight pattern, as opposed to the up-and-down motion typical of other birds.

7.  Cotylorhynchus, one of the largest pelycosaurs, is quite possibly the funniest-looking extinct animal I have ever, ever seen.  It was also discovered by my 9th grade Language Arts teacher's great great uncle, J. Willis Stovall, a famous paleontologist. 

8.  One of the elephants at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo is named Kimba, which means "Poop" (I used the nicer term for what the word actually means there) or "Corpse" in Swahili.

9.  Speaking of poop, fossil poop is known as a "coprolite."

10.  The acrobatic margay can rotate its ankles 180 degrees, which allows it to descend tree trunks head-first and hold on to branches with either their front or back paws.

11.  The white-tailed deer is named for the white patch on its rump and tail, while the mule deer is named for the fact that its face resembles that of a mules.

12.  About a third of the extant mammalian species are rodents.

13.  Hopping, the method of locomotion preferred by the kangaroos, is actually much more efficient than walking.  Of course, this is only the case if you have evolved in that fashion.  It wouldn't just be more energy efficient if we started hopping around everywhere.  

14.  Although you often hear people mention the "saber-toothed tigers," this is actually a bit of a misnomer, due to the fact that the saber-toothed cats to which they are referring to are not actually tigers, and are simply just cats.  

15.  The sweat of the Hippopotamus, is red or pink, leading people to aptly refer to it as "blood-sweat."

16.  Despite the fact that the polar bear has white fur, the color of its skin is the complete opposite: jet-black.  Talk about Yin/Yang right there.

17.  Island dwarfism is suspected to have occurred in one of our human relatives, Homo floresiensis, who inhabited the island of Flores in Indonesia up until around 12,000 years ago.  The nick-name for this ancient human is "The Hobbit." 

18.  The word "Mona" means "monkey" in Spanish.  Sure would suck if that was your name now wouldn't it!

19.  In Hindu culture, owls are a sign of bad luck.  That double sucks if you are Hindi and terrified of birds.

20.  Speaking of owls, due to the fact that they have binocular, or stereoscopic, vision (unlike other birds of prey, who have an eye on each side of its head), they have evolved the ability to turn their heads around 270 degrees in either direction.  Must be tough for them to crack their necks.

21.  Despite the fact that the creature in the picture below looks like a raccoon, it is not: that, my friends, is the raccoon dog!

22.  The tusks of the elephants are actually greatly elongated incisor teeth.  For reference, tap your front two teeth on the top or bottom of your mouth, it doesn't matter which, they are the same.  Those are your incisor teeth, you have two on each side of your mouth, eight all together.  

23.  In the narwhal, however, the tusk is their canine teeth, which (at least in our mouths) are the teeth right next to our incisors, towards the outside of our mouths. 

A Look Ahead, Fun Fact 8/9/2012

First off, check out today's post about the coati, down below!

Here's this weeks "A Look Ahead:"

Friday:  Simba, Pumbaa, and Other Swahili Names From "The Lion King" - Learn what the names of some of your favorite characters mean!

Saturday:  The Light Rail Coyote - All about the coyote who hitched a ride on a train.

Sunday:  Guards of the Fairy Penguin - Guarding the world's smallest penguins with professional snipers! 

Monday:  Shrinky Dink: The Channel Island Fox and The Island Effect - How getting trapped on an island caused these foxes to shrink!

Tuesday:  Stupid People Stealing Turtles - What sounds better than stealing a bunch of turtles from a museum?

Wednesday:  The Sounds of Star Wars - Chewbacca may look like a bear, but was he voiced by one, too?

Thursday:  The Loch Ness Monster....Fact or Fiction? - Spoiler Alert:  It's Fiction
 

Friday:  Perfume-Loving Lions and Record-Breaking Cheetahs - Lions from the Denver Zoo fawn over the men's perfume "Obsession," while Sarah the cheetah become the world's fastest animal!

FUN FACT:   THE JACKALOPE IS REAL

A "jackalope."  Photo Credit:  Mona Kamath

 "Scoff," most of you are probably saying.  "This guy is pathetic."  Pathetic I may be, but the jackalope is, in fact, real; just not necessarily in the way you might think.  

Although the first picture is a fake (photo credit: Mona Kamath), the one above, as well as down below, are both real.  Clearly these are not antlers, but what are they?  Well, these "antlers" are actually tumors, caused by the Cottontail Rabbit Papilloma Virus (CRPV).  Many rabbits get by just fine with these growths.  In 2003, a man named Grant VanGilder (a cool last name if there ever was one) took this picture in Mankato, Minnesota, an hour or so outside of Annandale, Minnesota.  According the Mr. VanGilder (awesome), “He is still alive and kicking and is the talk of the neighborhood.”  However, if the tumors grow to big, they could effect the animal in its ability to feed or flee, which would eventually lead to its downfall.  The picture above is of a mounted cottontail rabbit, caught near Topeka, Kansas.

When early settlers would see these animals, they would most likely assume that they were a crossbreed between a deer and a rabbit.  Although most people understand this now, at the time, people also thought that the jackalope was so rare because it would only mate during lightning storms with hail, tasted like lobster, and can mimic the voices of drunk people.

So presumably, settlers, cowboys, and the like would discover these cottontails, dead or alive, and talk about them, show them around.  From this, it has been speculated, and seems most likely, that the jackalope arose.  It seems as if rabbits in Germany get this cancer as well, explaining the origin of Germany's "Wolpertinger."

More recently, people such as Ronald Reagan have used the jackalope as a way to mess with people.  The story goes that during press tours of his house in the '80s, he would show the reporters a mounted jackalope head, and tell them he had caught it himself, when, in actuality, it had been a gift from James Abdnor, a senator for South Dakota.

So next time one of your friends says "There's no such thing as a jackalope!" make sure to set the record straight.  Tell them everything that you have just learned, and they will think you are really smart.  Because you ARE smart.

Top Ten: Extinct Sea Monsters (Part 5 of 5)

Our final edition of "Top Ten:  Extinct Sea Monsters!

9.  Tanystropheus - Living during the Middle Triassic Period, Tanystropheus is somewhat of a misfit amongst this group, as he is not really a sea-monster, and was, at most, a semi-aquatic animal (think otters).  Purportedly piscivorous, Tanystropheus fossils are usually found in semi-aquatic sites.  Its neck has been likened to that of the Plesiosaurs, like Elasmosaurus.  They would all use their necks to surprise a group of fish, long before the fish would be able to see the body of the reptile. Remains have been discovered throughout France, Germany, and Italy, amongst other places. 

10.  Tylosaurus - Interestingly enough, the closest living relative of the extinct mosasaurs, of which Tylosaurus is a member, are the monitor lizards, like the Komodo dragon.  Both the monitor lizards and the mosasaurs have a third eye on the top of their heads, although it just looks like a little white dot on the top of the head of the monitor lizard.  It doesn't work in the same fashion as their other eyes, however.  Look towards a light (not the sun, because apparently that can actually be harmful) and close your eyes.  You can still still some light, right?  Now, move your hand back and forth in front of your face, between your eyes and the light.  Can you see how the light changes?  You can't see anything more distinct than the fact that something moved between you and that light.  That is what the third eye of monitor lizards and mosasaurs would have been like.  Tylosaurus also inhabited the Western Interior Seaway during the Late Cretaceous.  Remains, amongst other places, have been discovered in Alabama and Kansas, amongst other places.

So that concludes our "Top Ten:  Extinct Sea Monsters" edition!  Unfortunate that we had to break it up into five parts, to be sure, but hey, that's life!

This post is part of the "Top Ten: Extinct Sea Monsters" series.  For the rest of the posts in this series, click HERE.  

Top Ten: Extinct Sea Monsters (Part 4 of 5)

7.  Archelon - Archelon is the largest sea turtle that has been discovered to date, the closest living relative that Archelon has is the "Critically Endangered" leatherback sea turtle, the largest sea turtle alive today.  Living in the Late Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway between 75-65 MYA, Archelon has been discovered in the states of South Dakota, Wyoming and Kansas. 

8.  Leedsichthys - Often cited as the largest fish known to humankind, the largest Leedsichthys had an estimated length of 72 feet, but some researchers believe that it could have grown to sizes that would rival those seen in the blue whale, the largest known animal ever to live on planet Earth.   Although Leedsichthys swam the seas only during the Jurassic Period, the group that it belonged to survived until the end of the Cretaceous Period.  Remains of this filter feeder have been uncovered in England, France, Germany, and Chile.  


COMING UP NEXT WE HAVE:

9.  Tanystropheus
10. Tylosaurus

This post is part of the "Top Ten: Extinct Sea Monsters" series.  For the rest of the posts in this series, click HERE.  

Top Ten: Extinct Sea Monsters (Part 2 of 5)

So why did I split this post up into five parts?  Well, originally it was all just one big post, but it was simply too big, like so often happens.  So I will just post the rest of the parts throughout the next few days.  So here is part number two!

3.  Liopleurodon - A member of the short-necked Plesiosaurs, or Pliosaurs, Liopleurodon was the top predator of the Middle and Late Jurassic shallow seas that covered Europe at that time.  Fossils of Liopleurodon have been found in England, France, Germany, and Russia. 

4.  Shonisaurus - Shonisaurus is a fascinating example of convergent evolution.  When similar environmental and ecological pressures went to work on the ancestors of Shonisaurus, and the rest of the ichthyosaurs, as well as the ancestors of the dolphins and porpoises, they produced very similar results in very different kind of animals.  Shonisaurus and the rest of the ichthyosaurs are marine reptiles, while the dolphins and porpoises are both mammals.  Shonisaurus lived during the Late Triassic Period, right around when the dinosaurs were first making their debut.  At least thirty-seven skeletons of this giant have been discovered in Nevada. In fact, Nevada is still a fantastic place to see some of these creatures, especially Berlin Ichthyosaur State Park in Berlin, a few hours outside of Reno (pictured below)!  This is where the first bones belonging to Shonisaurus were actually discovered!  Definitely high on the list of places that I want to go!

Coming Up:
5.  Elasmosaurus
6.  Dunkleosteus
7.  Archelon
8.  Leedsichthys
9.  Tanystropheus
10. Tylosaurus

This post is part of the "Top Ten: Extinct Sea Monsters" series.  For the rest of the posts in this series, click HERE.