Trivia / Pterosaurs: Natural History, Evolution, Anatomy

• Science Marches On:
  • Hatzegopteryx turned out to be much beefier than the book portrays it.
  • Aspidorhynchus (the fish that attacked the Rhamphorhynchus) probably wasn't preying on pterosaurs as Witton previously thought; it's now believed that Aspidorhynchus may have attacked the Rhamphorhynchus by accident while aiming for a fish the Rhamphorhynchus had eaten/was chasing. The details are still unclear, though and it isn't the only example of an Aspidorhynchus attacking a Rhamphorhynchus...
  • Sometime in 2014, Henderson and Hone did a paper on swimming pterosaurs and concluded that they were probably not capable of the duck-like floating Witton portrays them as accomplishing, being more like otters or crocodiles when floating. Witton acknowledged this in a later blog post, though he stands by his view that seagoing pterosaurs were efficient swimmers as long as they could keep their nostrils out of the water while swimming.