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Re: poling and flying and bird refs
First, yes, the torso floats in the poling scenario.
I see.
Third, it sure makes everything easier if the pterosaur never goes
past knee deep waters. But those hands only tracks have to be
accounted for somehow. Ideas welcome.
Undertracks suggest themselves, as Jaime has pointed out.
Fourth, poling marks are undertracks? Not likely considering the
weight involved, mostly supported by water.
I was trying to say that the weight was _not_ supported by water, or at
least most of it wasn't. Pterosaurs are front-heavy, so the foot prints are
expected to vanish in higher sediment layers than the hand prints. Pterosaur
walks on soft mud on all fours, many layers of mud get deformed, the top
layers erode away, and one of the underprint layers ends up being published.
Fifth, I'm not sure how the air-filled skull would descend unless,
perhaps, some allowance for some water to enter some chamber was
made, in any pterosaur.
A good, testable speculation. :-)
Maybe that's where the multiple naris comes in.
It does not exist. It is a misinterpretation of cracks in the fossil.
Several people have pointed this out onlist.
It's still worth throwing an idea out there, even
if Jim thinks it's gutsy, and especially if there are animators
around who have to make such scripts believable.
Why? Jim has pointed out that it's physically impossible. The only worth of
this idea is that many of us have learned a bit more about basic
aerodynamics/biomechanics.
Don't get me wrong. The problem is not the idea. The problem is just that
you like so much to actually believe in your spontaneous ideas. :-)
We are in fantasyland much of the time with prehistoric animals.
As Jaime has said, it is not science to explore the realm of all
possibilities, it is science to _limit_ the realm of possibilities by
finding out what is impossible.
We've all seen worse ideas make it into the lit.
That's bad for them, not good for your idea. (I thought that was obvious.
~:-| )