David Peters Sucks

A true story

[raptorcivilization]

Do any non-azhdarchid animals have heads 3 times the length of the torso?

A few other pterosaurs seem to have, such as Pteranodon:

Among non-pterosaurs, we have, uh, the sword-billed hummingbird:

[despazito]

david “what’s convergent evolution” peters

[ask-palaeoblr]

Which is the coolest pterosaur?

[pteresies]

Anurognathus 

 (art credit to Andrey Atuchin, from pteros.com)

[jurassicsunsets]

Have you read Storrs Olson’s diatribe about how cladistics is a cult & paleontologists are deliberately committing fraud so that Big Paleo will pay them off for saying that birds are dinosaurs?

He WHAT

[tjwock]

No seriously, WHAT???

[tjwock]

http://dml.cmnh.org/1999Nov/msg00263.html

Is it this open letter??

[pteresies]

rebageling for sake of intrigue.

[jurassicsunsets]

Have you read Storrs Olson’s diatribe about how cladistics is a cult & paleontologists are deliberately committing fraud so that Big Paleo will pay them off for saying that birds are dinosaurs?

He WHAT

[pteresies]

hey op where's the link

[jurassicsunsets]

Did you see that David Peters has koalas as related to toxodon? (If you haven't, it's the post titled "The Koala joins the LRT")

……………….no way

[jurassicsunsets]

oh my god

[jurassicsunsets]

For those who don’t know, toxodonts are a group of (predominantly) south american ungulates (probably) similar in size/niche to cows.

[pteresies]

David Peters what the fuck

[palaeofail]

Where do we even begin…

[jurassicsunsets]

Probably by saying that although we don’t know exactly what Longisquama was, we do know that it wasn’t a dinosaur.

[kevanhom-deactivated20250204]

A group of young Alamosaurus wandering by a sleeping Quetzalcoatlus

[jackthevulture]

I love azhdarchid pterosaurs even though im sure  theyre the reason the power or the universe hurled a giant rock at earth to put an end to their terrifying reign

Intended to be a quetzalcoatlus but i am no expert at pterosaur anatomy (or any extinct creature anatomy).  Definitely inspired somewhat by Howard Pyle’s 1909 painting, Marooned. 

Paintstorm Studio

[paleochick]

More #PterosaurPtuesday goodness from @paleeoguy! —————— Time for #PterosaurPtuesday!

Here is a reconstruction of #Tapejara, an Early Cretaceous crested #pterosaur genus from Brazil’s Romualdo Formation. This slab is about 1 m (3 ft) in height. Currently on display @goCMNH!

[just-shower-thoughts]

If giraffes were predators they would look both hilarious and terrifying while sneaking up on their prey

[i-draws-dinosaurs]

I’m afraid you’ve missed the predatory giraffes by about 66 million years mate.

These guys are Azhdarchid pterosaurs, and they were some of the strangest reptiles to ever exist. They were perfectly capable of flight, but their physiology suggests that they may have spent a significant portion of their lives hunting on the ground. 

The largest of them could reach over 5 metres tall while standing, and had a 10-metre wingspan. They varied greatly in body type, from the tall, spindly forms of Quetzalcoatlus and Arambourgiania (images 4 and 1-2 respectively) to the heavy brute strength of Hatzegopteryz, a species that may have used its head to bludgeon its prey (images 2 and 3).

There has never been another flying animal before or since to have reached such incredible sizes, nor any predator so intimidatingly tall. Well, not any that we know of yet.

All of these illustrations are by Mark Witton, a palaeontologist and artist who specialises in pterosaurs. This is his blog about palaeontology and the science of reconstructing extinct species. You can find out more about each of these images here, here and here.

(Oh, and by the way … these are NOT dinosaurs)

[crystallineknight]

What the hell these are so intimidating, why aren’t these in any dinosaur movies

[i-draws-dinosaurs]

Just imagine it … 

The protagonists and a few disposable minor characters are walking carefully through a forest at night, covered by a thick fog. They know there are dinosaurs everywhere, but they can’t see more than three metres in front of their own faces.

Eventually they stop near a small cluster of trees to rest. As they sit there, exhausted, one of the trees begins to move. Everyone freezes, terrified. They have no idea what this thing is.

Then a massive beak slams down, longer than a person is tall, and plucks one of the minor characters off his feet and into the air.

The small group erupts into movement, frantically running away from whatever those things are. There’s two of them now, and as the fog begins to clear the group are able to make out more of their shape. They are huge, with long, spindly necks topped with a massive, daggerlike head. The long legs that they once mistook for trees have an almost mechanical movement as the giant creatures stalk towards them. And then comes the next terrible surprise.

These things can run.

[s-leary]

It’s a short film.

[warpedellipsis]

How could those things possibly fly? Could they take off from the ground or did they need a cliff like bats do?

[i-draws-dinosaurs]

Okay this is really bizarre and awesome but like these guys probably used their giant long wings to pole-vault themselves into the air, from a standing start no less. No run-up or cliffside needed, just some massively powerful arms to launch them skywards like the world’s most terrifying slingshot.

(The pterosaur in the video I linked isn’t an azhdarchid, but it gets the general picture across)

[warpedellipsis]

because it wasn’t terrifying enough already….

How does something that big have hollow bones though? Wouldn’t they break under the pressure of pole vaulting themselves?

[i-draws-dinosaurs]

Basically, azhdarchid bones aren’t just “hollow”. They’re actually full of an incredibly complex network of spongy strands of bone that functions almost like scaffolding to support the bones and make them a lot stronger than they would initially appear. A lot of dinosaurs, including very large ones, had this same sort of bone structure as well.

 It’s a delicate balance between being light enough to fly and strong enough to take off and staying in the air, but they certainly weren’t skinny, lightweight pushovers like they’re often portrayed.

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Eopteranodon lii

By Franz Anthony, on @franzanth, retrieved from http://www.pteros.com/, a website dedicated to education about Pterosaurs.

A reminder that we will not be able to do every pterosaur until we reach $240 in donations on our patreon, so please donate even a dollar if you can. 

Name: Eopteranodon lii

Name Meaning: Dawn Toothless Wing

First Described: 2005

Described By: Lü & Zhang

Classification: Avemetatarsalia, Ornithodira, Pterosauromorpha, Pterosauria, Macronychoptera, Novialoidea, Breviquartossa, Pterodactylomorpha, Monofenestrata, Pterodactyliformes, Caelidracones, Pterodactyloidea, Eupterodactyloidea, Ornithocheiroidea, Azhdarchoidea, Neoazhdarchia, Neopterodactyloidea, Chaoyangopteridae

Eopteranodon is an Azhdarchoid perviously thought to be a Tapejarid - hence its position in the Pterosaur Ptuesday lineup - but now is thought to be a Chaoyangopterid, another group of crested, long-jawed pterosaurs, except more like the Azhdarchids in general behavior, with similarly long legs and necks, just smaller bodies. They were probably highly specialized as well, given that they all lived in similar locations while Azhdarchids lived in multiple different locations. Eopteranodon in particular lived in the Yixian Formation of Liaoning, China, living about 124.6 million years ago, in the Aptian age of the Early Cretaceous. It is known from multiple specimens, and had a wingspan of about 1.1 meters. It is one of the earliest known toothless pterosaurs, hence the name, and not really closely related to Pteranodon at all. It was a strong flier, and it probably ate fish and small animals in its forested environment. 

Sources: 

http://www.pteros.com/pterosaurs/eopteranodon.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaoyangopteridae 

http://www.pteros.com/families/chaoyangopteridae.html 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eopteranodon

[franzanth]

O hai thank you for putting up with my recent string of shitposts, here take an Australian dragon as my token of gratitude for sticking around. Read more about this fella on Pteros.

—

WIPs and ramblings are available on Patreon

[diplotomodon]

The Burmite Diaries: what’s all this about?

If you’ve spent any time in the palaeo corners of the internet within the past week, you’ve probably heard at least a little bit about amber – perhaps some vague descriptions, perhaps accompanied b…

So you’ve heard rumors of a pterosaur preserved in Burmese amber over the past week? Likewise. I know a lot about it and wrote a little about it. Comments welcome.

[arrozaurus]

im fucking pissing

[252mya]

Jiufotang pterosaurs

Artwork by Franz Anthony / @franzanth

In this swampy environment of Early Cretaceous China, multiple kinds of pterosaurs coexisted. Among them were the fisher Guidraco and the terrestrial hunter Chaoyangopterus.

—

252MYA creates custom-made artwork for private collections and editorial, scientific, or educational project.

[cryptid-quartz-deactivated20181]

Toucans are pretty weird, right?

I mean look at them, they’re all fucking beak.

But they get weirder.

Have you ever seen a toucan skull?

I MEAN LOOK AT THIS THING THEIR BEAK IS TALLER THAN THEIR ENTIRE FUCKING SKULL

[seelcudoom]

@thestalkerbunny toucan lich

[prokopetz]

It gets worse:

Without the added volume of feathers, a toucan’s beak is the size of the whole rest of its body put together. They are literally and without exaggeration 50% beak by volume.

[raptorcivilization]

Y’all think this is weird but this was pretty much the norm for derived pterosaurs.