Re: The birds vs. the pterosaurs

["Ken Kinman" <kinman@hotmail.com>]

Ronald,
     I still haven't had time to do more research on "bird-brains", 
theropod brains or pterosaur brains, but it is my understanding that it is 
the cerebellum (not the cerebrum) which controls most of the "mechanics of 
flight", and that the cerebellum of Archaeopteryx expands up and forward 
over the rest of the brain.  It seems like I once read something similar 
occurs in the brains of pterosaurs (but not sure).
     Maybe when Chris Brochu returns to the list, he will have something to 
say about how the cerebellums (cerebella?) of theropods (especially 
maniraptors) compare to those of these flighted forms.
                    -----Ken Kinman
P.S.   I thought the same thing about wasps stinging dinosaurs----doesn't 
sound like that fellow "thought that through" very thoroughly.   Maybe he 
thinks the blood pressure of the dinosaur would force the blood up the 
wasp's stinger and into its body.   <snicker>
********************************************************
Ronald Orenstein wrote:
> There is absolutely no way to determine this, of course, although I have 
> never heard that their [pterosaur] brains were particularly large (though I 
> assume they have large optic lobes, and would certainly needed pretty good 
> higher brain functions to control the mechanics of flight.  That certainly 
> isn't the same as intelligence, though.
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