Pterosaurs in trees? NOT!

[tlford@ix.netcom.com (Tracy Ford)]

Have I lost my mind? (Don?t ask my brother!). Have I even 
looked at pterosaurs? Well, yes.

If you look at a pterosaurs wing, you?ll notice that it is 
long and thin, similar to a gull?s wing. They?re not short
 and stubby like a sparrow. Pterosaurs wings were to long 
for it to fly in and out of trees. Sure the wing fingers, 
manus, have sharp claws, but the pes, does not. 

Did they climb a tree like a squirrel? No. Like a monkey, no 
again. The pes claws are short like those of  a ground dweller.
 Lets say for argument, that the pterosaur did climb a tree. 
Pterosaurs don?t have a retroverted claw to help hold it on a
 tree branch. The wings were to long and clumsy to jump off a
 branch. What about hanging on a tree trunk? Ok, lets say it did,
 how?d it get into the air from a trunk? The manus claws are sharp
 and could hold onto a trunk, but the pes claws are not and could 
not hold onto a trunk. Ok, it?s holding on with it manus claws, 
then what? The pterosaur has it?s back to the air in which it needs
to fly around in. How?d it get into the air? Did it push off, turn 
around quickly, then fly off? Not likely. Did it hang upside down? 
No, the pes claws couldn?t hang on.  Then what?s with the long 
recurved manus claws? If you look at a Rhamphorhynchid skull, you 
see long sharp teeth. Lets say it flew over an ocean, lake, whatever, 
caught a fish, then what did it do? The fish would have been stuck 
on it?s teeth. How to get it off? A bird can flip the fish in it?s 
beak, but birds don?t  have teeth, so they can do that. If the fish 
was stuck how?d it get it unstuck? I think they landed, sat down, 
used it?s long hooked manus claws to pull the fish off it?s teeth, 
then manipulate the fish so it could be eaten.  The later pterosaurs 
mani got smaller, so they couldn?t even get into a tree.

We know that at least some pterosaurs nested in rookeries. There is
 a large nesting site in Chile, and possibly in Big Bend, Texas. So 
pterosaurs didn?t nest in trees.

So they didn?t nest in trees, couldn?t fly out of or into trees... 
Well, they never went into trees.

They started flying by running and flapping, no gliding. They use the 
majority of the same flight muscles as birds, but in a different way. 
Birds became much more capable fliers, so they?ve ended up ruling the 
air.

Tracy