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Re: Ptero-hawks?
> Who says all _Pterosauria_ were piscivores? Okay, the majority of
known
> forms seem to be, but this could easily be due to preservational
bias. Who
> is more likely to be preserved, a pterosaur hunting other pterosaurs
in
> the forest, or a pterosaur who spends most of his life near water,
where
> deposits are formed?
>
> OTOH, I can't think of a good candidate, and you're right about the
lack
> of bat-eating bats.... (isn't he?)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't owls prey on bats? If so, it would
seem to me, that the bats have little chance of taking over the
bat-hunting niche from predatory birds. There were no such competitors
for pterosaurs however, and IMO it would make sense that during the
millions of years they were the only flying vertebrates on Earth, at
least one genus of predatory pterosaurs would have evolved.
Anyhow, if it's not the birds that keep bats from evolving into
bat-hunters, might it have something to do with their size? (To catch
and carry another bat, the predatory bat would have to be considerably
larger and stronger, wouldn't it?). To my knowledge, there are very
few microbats that are actually big enough to hunt other things than
insects. And the megabats naturally aren't hunting anything, though
they certainly are big enough...
--
Matti Aumala
mjaumala@nettilinja.fi