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Re: Discovery Article On Pterosaurs
Re the comments on azhdarchid low-wing stability in Darren's and Dave's
PDF (BTW, nice work, D&D !), I have a Quetz scapulocoracoid lying on my
desk as I write this. The glenoid ain't all that low.
And re high wing versus low wing stability in general -- as I mentioned
at Toulouse, I own three high wing planes and one low wing, all Pipers.
Contrary to Dino's statement, the low wing plane is by far the most
stable of the four. There are other factors that have far more effect on
stability than wing root placement on the vertical axis, and those other
factors were available to our beasties, just as they were for Bill
Piper.
Also, re size of the big beasties..... In some measurements, the Hatz
humerus is larger than Qn by a couple of percent -- but other Hatz
humerus measurements are smaller than Qn by about the same amount.
Also, when looking at the skeletal reconstructions of Qn, one should
keep in mind that due to lack of time, we scaled the Qn skull up
isometrically from Qsp because we were desperately trying to make the
opening ceremony for the TMM. That skull sculpture is way too gracile.
Even so, it is seven feet long. The skulls of Hatz and Qn were likely
very nearly the same size, somewhere on the loose order of 7.5 to 8.5
feet long. What this boils down to is that there isn't sufficient
extant information to say that either animal was larger than the other.
To me, the most interesting thing is that neither animal was
particularly close to the upper size limit for pterosaur launch and
flight.
Jim
Mike Taylor wrote:
> Congratulations to Darren and Dave. For those who's not already
> tracked it down, a PDF of the paper is freely available from the
> Institute of Biology's site, at
http://www.iob.org/downloads/Pterosaurs_50_5.pdf
>
> Enjoy!