S03E02 Pterosaurs

Terrible Lizards

No dinosaurs this week! Shock, horror! It was always going to happen sooner or later as Dave does a lot of work on pterosaurs as well as on dinosaurs and we’ve had some specific requests for a pterosaur episode so here we go (and they’ll return again soon we’re sure). These flying reptiles are too often just window dressing in the background of pictures of dinosaurs but they are their own distinct evolutionary group with a fascinating array of weird features and produced the largest flying animals of all time with wingspans over 10 m. The week we make a delayed welcome to a first guest of the series and it is Dr Adam Rutherford, geneticist, author and presenter and general all round science nerd. He wants to know how the sex of dinosaur embryos was determined but mostly we end up talking about Star Wars Easter eggs.

Links:

This is a website Dave and a group of fellow pterosaur researchers set up as a one stop-shop for all things pterosaur. http://pterosaur.net

An essay on the giant azhdarchids by palaeontologist Mark Witton. It’s a little old so some things have updated but it’s fundamentally a great introduction to them https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiM4Mr__rHuAhUSmVwKHaymCDoQFjACegQIAhAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.markwitton.com%2Fdownload%2Fi%2Fmark_dl%2Fu%2F4009119796%2F4549073080%2FWitton%25202007%2520-%2520Azhdarchids.pdf&usg=AOvVaw0WICVGKJd7VlGpFB3Uoanx

A link to Dave’s recent paper suggesting baby pterosaurs were flying: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/let.12391

And here’s the links for the Star Wars nerdery:

https://carnegiemnh.org/dippy-in-star-wars/

https://svpow.com/2013/01/21/confirmed-the-umbraran-starfighter-is-an-apatosaurus-cervical/

Adam Rutherford's new book (that Iszi got for Xmas) is called How To Argue With a Racist paperback out Feb 4th