Study casts doubt on traditional view of pterosaur flight
May 22, 2018
Brown University
This is an image of a reliable reconstruction. Soft tissues like ligaments play a big role in determining a joint's range of motion. But soft tissues rarely fossilize, causing problems for paleontologists trying to reconstruct who extinct creatures may have lived. Now researchers have shown a new method for inferring the extent to which ligaments inhibit joint movement, which could be helpful in reconstructing ancient species. Credit: Armita Manafzadeh
Most renderings and reconstructions of pterodactyls and other extinct flying reptiles show a flight pose much like that of bats, which fly with their hind limbs splayed wide apart. But a new method for inferring how ancient animals might have moved their joints suggests that pterosaurs probably couldn't strike that pose.
https://m.phys.org/news/2018-05-traditional-view-pterosaur-flight.html
