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Re: Pterosaur Fur




On Tue, 16 Oct 2007, MICHAEL HABIB wrote:
Even if the wings had hair (unlikely, as has been
mentioned), long fur/fuzz is unlikely to have the
structural strength required to resist aerodynamic
loads.  Hair simply doesn't make for a very good
spoiler.  John Conway already mentioned some viable
methods for warping the wing.  It turns out that
pterosaur wings could change shape in a number of
ways, though I do agree that it is not immediately
obvious/intuitive when looking at them for the first
time.

There is one way that the fuzz/hair on pterosaurs
could be aerodynamically useful, however, and that
is in the production of a turbulent boundary layer.

I've seen a lot of pictures of bats but do not recall seeing any hairy wings. Are there any hairy winged bats? If so, there'd at be something to compare with.