Re: The amazing 'Dark-Wing' Rhamphorhynchus

["James R. Cunningham" <jrccea@bellsouth.net>]

Unwin wrote:
> 

> The critical new discovery, described by the authors, is of a network of 
> fibres (probably muscles but might be elastic fibres), that run transverse to 
> the aktinofibrils (also superbly picked out by the UV light technique).

Yes!! -- Haleluyah !

> The point being that such a system is exactly what would be expected (and 
> needed) in an extensible membrane stretched between the fore and hind limbs.

Or in an extensible membrane that doesn't.

> The authors also describe a blood vessel system that ramifies through the 
> wing-membrane and, using Tischlingers UV light techniques, were also able to 
> find evidence for this system in some previously described specimens of 
> Rhamphorhynchus. This is one of the most significant papers ever published on 
> pterosaurs and I take my hat off to Tischlinger and Frey for a major 
> ground-breaking contribution.


I look forward to reading it.  I think you may well be right about its
significance.
> 
> This specimen also bears directly on previous discussions regarding the 
> attachment of the brachiopatagium to the hind limb in pterosaurs. Plates 2 
> and 5 of the Tischlinger and Frey paper clearly show the inner part of the 
> brachiopatagium extending down the external margin of the tibia as far as the 
> ankle. This segment of the brachiopatagium has the same colour and texture as 
> the main part of the brachiopatagium, is completely continuous with it and, 
> most tellingly, even contains a small fold that starts in the main part of 
> the brachiopatagium and runs down into the segment of the brachiopatagium 
> external to the leg. A uropatagium is also preserved, but seems to be 
> narrower than, for example, in Sordes.

I look forward to seeing it.