Re: pterosaur/bat wing membranes

[jrc <jrccea@bellsouth.net>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Peters" <davidrpeters@earthlink.net>
To: <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Saturday, April 15, 2006 8:45 AM
Subject: re: pterosaur/bat wing membranes


> Q. sp. has a rostrum that is  wider than tall, resembling the end of a 
> yard stick.

Only at the utmost tip.  The tip of the lower mandible is rounded when seen 
from above or below, and thin and slightly turned down at the very tip.  The 
lower mandible is about a half inch shorter than the upper.  It rapidly 
becomes taller than wide as you move aft, and when you consider the fineness 
ratio created by the angle that it would enter the water, it is very near 
the minimum drag shape.

> Yes it is crushed, but it is crushed dorso-ventrally, which is a highly 
> unlikely crushing angle for a laterally compressed rostrum.  And that 
> transversely straight tip is really the end of the rostrum.

Dave, are you referring to the photo seen near the bottom of page 144 of 
Wellnhofer?  If so, that's a tapejarid from further down in the formation. 
It is not a Quetzalcoatlus.  It was misidentified in Wellnhofer.

> And everyone knows that pushing a  yardstick width-wise through water, as 
> if it was attached to a  skimmer) is not the most efficient way to 'knife' 
> through the water.

I'm sorry, I don't know that.....  :-)
More seriously, it depends upon what you want to do with the water than you 
intercept.

> But it does make a good mud probe.

Yes, it could do that, though there are other shapes that would work better 
for probing.