Re: Pterosaur landing track

["jrc" <jrccea@bellsouth.net>]

While I agree that the trackway should see more work, like Kevin I find it 
more convincing as a landing trackway than as swimming prints.  This might 
be a good place to mention that while pterosaurs land using the same 
mechanisms as birds, neither are doing a conventional steady-state 'stall'. 
It would appear that both use the same unsteady process called 'full 
alternating momentum reversal', which creates a flow more similar to that of 
the 'fast start' mechanism in fish than to a stall.
JimC

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Unwin, Dr D.M." <dmu1@leicester.ac.uk>
To: <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 2009 12:50 AM
Subject: Pterosaur landing track


> The pterosaur landing track paper is:
>
> First record of a pterosaur landing trackway
>
> Jean-Michel Mazin, Jean-Paul Billon-Bruyat and Kevin Padian
>
> Proceedings of the Royal Society Series B.
>
> doi:10.1098/rspb.2009.1161
>
> Not sure if it is actually 'visible' yet. Anyway, when it is, I should 
> point out that while it would be a great find if it truly is a landing 
> trackway, it is also possible that it is a swim track and more work will 
> be needed to resolve this one way or the other.
>
> Party Pooper Dave