WEBVTT - Selects: Pterosaurs: Not Flying Dinosaurs 0:00:00.960 --> 0:00:03.360 Hey everyone, it's Josh and for this week's select, I've 0:00:03.440 --> 0:00:09.560 chosen our twenty sixteen episode on tarosaars, not flying dinosaurs, terosaars. 0:00:09.600 --> 0:00:12.160 They were their own thing, and this episode brings out 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:15.280 the inner child paleontologist in me. I hope it does 0:00:15.320 --> 0:00:17.720 for you too. There's only one way to find out. 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:21.000 Sit back, relax and enjoy the episode. 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:33.280 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:37.880 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:41.400 Charles w Chuck Bryant, just the two of us batching 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:45.239 it today. Yeah, that's my dad used to say if 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:47.200 he had to take care of me while my mom 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:48.760 was working, We're just batching it? 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:50.640 Is that? What was that what he said? 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:51.760 Yeah? 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:54.120 I thought that was a relatively new term. 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:57.760 No, I mean at least the early eighties, all right, 0:00:58.560 --> 0:01:00.560 Maybe my dad was like way ahead of his time. 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:02.640 Why hasn't there been a movie called batching it? 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:04.200 I I don't know. 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:06.120 That's actually pretty obvious. 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:08.840 The fact that it was around as a word in 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:11.200 the eighties makes me even more surprised that there's not 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:13.880 a movie called batch in it. Yeah that like the 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:16.600 protagonist has to put on like a car wash to 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:18.360 save their business or something like that. 0:01:18.560 --> 0:01:22.600 Yeah, Owen Wilson, what did he do? Well? He would 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:25.160 just be the star of batching it, I imagine, right. 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:28.600 I guess. So could that guy be any more charming 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:29.120 than he is? 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:30.080 He's pretty charming. 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:35.080 Speaking of charming, Chuck, let me introduce you to a 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:43.080 wonderful little beast named ketzil Coloattus north Ropie. Mh are 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:43.960 you are you familiar? 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:44.440 Sure? 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:50.640 So, ketzel Colattis is named after the ASTech flying serpent 0:01:50.680 --> 0:01:54.960 god quets old Colaudal. Yes, right, so it makes sense. 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:58.480 But this guy was a real thing. Not to put 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:01.200 down the Aztec's beliefs or anything like that, but this 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:05.560 is a verifiable beast at one point, particularly in the 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:09.639 late Cretaceous period, and it's what you would probably call 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:12.760 a pterodactyl. But if you call it a pterodactyl, you'd 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:15.720 be dead wrong. Pal. Yeah, what it really is is 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:20.440 a terosaur. And there's a lot of misunderstandings that we're 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:23.360 going to sort through, but the most important point is 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:26.919 that this beast right here is twenty feet tall, as 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:30.280 tall as a giraffe, and it had a wingspan akin 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:33.720 to about an f sixteen fighter jet and it was 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:39.680 a bad mamma jama. How's that for a leading That's good. 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:41.040 I like it. 0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:44.160 I didn't even use the wayback machine, just trim the 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:45.920 fat gone. 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:48.720 Oh, you don't even need that old clunky thing anymore. 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:51.840 We just use our imaginations. We're not actually in the 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:54.440 Cretaceous period like we would be if we had used 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:55.560 the wayback machine. 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:59.399 Okay, uh yeah. These terra starts with the P of course, 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:04.399 the silent peace, that is from Greek meaning winged lizards. 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:09.200 And that's pretty on point because they were reptiles. They 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:10.360 were not dinosaurs. 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:13.480 Yes, big big distinction here. 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:16.280 They're close, it's like a sister to a dinosaur. 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:20.200 Perhaps they're from the same claude, which is archosaurs, but 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:22.400 it's a really wide claude. And all that means is 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:25.000 that they have in the very remote past some single 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:26.880 common ancestor with dinosaurs. 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:30.840 Yeah, and they were around roughly the same time period 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:35.280 and definitely and went away in the same fashion. So 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:38.800 it's normal, I think for people to say, look at 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:42.200 that pterodactyl, look at that flying dinosaur, even though neither 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:44.320 one of those is necessarily correct. 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:47.440 Yeah. So just to get this across, one more time. 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:52.080 Pterosaurs were not flying dinosaurs. They were flying reptiles, but 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:56.360 they weren't dinosaurs. They weren't birds either, And to confused 0:03:56.400 --> 0:03:59.840 things even further, there were birds around at the time 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:03.440 of the dinosaurs and the time of the pterosaurs. And 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:07.200 to confuse things even further, there were such things as 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:08.960 actual flying dinosaurs. 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:17.400 We call them velociraptors, right, and these vertebrates actually we're 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:22.440 flying long before birds and bats, by like millions and 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:23.520 millions of years. 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:25.800 Yeah, I think this how stuff works article. This is 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:27.640 a good one. I got to give big ups to 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:29.719 Clint pump Free. 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:30.479 Yeah, pretty good. 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:33.320 The pumpuff Yeah, it sounds like an action house Stuff 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:38.359 works writer Clint pump Frey just b frock, you know, 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:43.200 uh huh. But he said, I think eighty million years difference, 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:44.720 eighty million years before. 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:46.799 Yeah, I mean that's that's a lot of years. 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:51.320 It is. So there's a lot of like confusing stuff 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:53.400 flying around. And I think there's one other thing we 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:55.479 should probably address right out of the gate, is that 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:59.280 you you shouldn't call them pterodactyls, even though a lot 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:04.719 of people do. Pterodactyls are actually a specific genus of pterosaurs. 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:09.960 So to call all pterosaurs pterodactyls would be incorrect, but 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:12.280 you could call all pterodactyls pterosaurs. 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:17.160 Okay, yeah, And technically, like if you have seen this 0:05:17.160 --> 0:05:19.280 this thing in movies a lot that they say that's 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:22.200 a pterodactyl, what you've probably been looking at this whole 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:26.200 time is one of the species. And they're you know, 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:30.560 potentially up to two hundred of these species right now. 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:33.039 I think they've identified about one hundred and one hundred 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:40.080 and thirty ish. But a tara tara nodone, is that 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:43.080 how you say it? I taranidon. 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:44.520 That's what I would have gone with. 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:48.160 I like tara nodone. Right, that's probably what you've been 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:50.880 seeing in movies all this time, that you've been saying, 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:53.120 that's a pterodactyl. Like if you if you look up 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:58.320 in image search of the taranodon, you'll say that that's 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:00.000 a pterodactyl because I saw it and can. 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:03.279 Yeah, it's like this giant winged beast with kind of short, 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:05.840 stubby legs and a huge wing span and like a 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:08.119 weird crest on its head and a long pointy beak. 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:10.880 A pterodactyl. Everybody knows what a pterodactyl is. Don't be 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:13.800 an idiot. Yeah, you saw in King Kong nineteen thirty three, 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:16.360 saw the same thing in Jurassic Park three in two 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:19.880 thousand and one. Right, things hadn't changed all that much. 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:22.520 But in that time span, it's actually kind of surprising 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:29.120 because our understanding of terosaurs had increased dramatically, and yet 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:33.520 we were still just basically thinking of them exclusively as pterodactyls, 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:34.640 which isn't the case. 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:38.880 Yeah, there was a paleontologist named O. C. Marsh who 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:44.160 was a pretty good name for a paleontologist. Sure, he 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:48.919 collected these first fossils in what is now and was 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:53.800 then Western Kansas in the late eighteen hundreds, like eighteen seventy, 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:57.440 and they've been well, I was about to say, they've 0:06:57.440 --> 0:06:59.839 been digging up lots of these since then. They sort 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:04.039 of have, but not nearly as many as other types 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:09.960 of fossils, because these fossils are really highly breakable and dissolvable, 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:13.200 and they're tough to get a hold of and keeping 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:14.600 one piece throughout the process. 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:17.080 Yeah, we should, we should talk about that. Like, one 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:19.920 of the reasons there is so little understanding of terosaurs 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:23.480 is because they don't fossilize very well, Nah, because their 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:26.800 bones were not designed to be fossilized. They were designed 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:29.520 to allow these giant reptiles to fly. 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:32.080 Yeah. They didn't say like, oh, we need to be 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:34.760 designed to leave our mark later. No, it's like we 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:36.360 want to fly right exactly. 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:40.040 So early on, I think the first tearodon or the 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:44.280 first terosaur specimen was found in the late eighteenth century 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:47.400 in Germany, and by the time O. C. Marsh was 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:51.680 digging them up one hundred years later in Kansas, they 0:07:51.920 --> 0:07:54.160 they'd been discovered, but they'd also just kind of been 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:57.920 abandoned because there were very few follow up fossils that 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:01.600 were identified. Right, Yeah, Marsh started to dig him up. 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:04.960 This is a big deal. And because he was finding 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:10.640 virtually all of the same species, the Tyrannadon, that became 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:16.400 the common conception of what the terrasaar is. But it 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:19.800 was coupled with an earlier name, Pterodactyl, that had been 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:26.000 given to the entire species or the entire group by 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:28.400 George Cuvier and I think eighteen twelve. 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:31.440 Yeah, and that first fossil you were talking about, no 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:34.120 one knows. No one got credit for that for digging 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:36.560 that thing up. But like you said, it was in 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:39.720 Germany in a lime in limestone, like one hundred and 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:43.680 fifty million year old limestone, late in the eighteenth century 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:47.840 that eventually found its way to a man with a 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:51.280 great name, Cossimo Alessandro Collini. 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:54.400 That's a great man. When I first came across this 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:56.439 in this article, I was like, I'm looking forward to 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:57.960 hearing Chuck say that guy's name. 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:00.800 That's him. He was Italian figure, and he was a 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:04.800 natural scientist, and he, like many others to follow, for 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:07.640 a long time, didn't really know what it was, since 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:13.319 since they found that in an ancient lagoon with all 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:16.920 kinds of seafaring creatures, he understandably thought it was a 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:17.840 seafaring creature. 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:21.440 Yeah, And some of the best preserved fossils that we 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:24.760 have of these things are found in things like lagoons 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:29.280 where something happened to them. They died suddenly quickly fell 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:33.640 into a like a body of water, which probably broke 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:36.120 their fall a little bit. They landed at the muck 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:40.840 and were covered up potentially in some anaerobic in an 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:45.840 anaerobic state, and eventually became fossilized very gently. That's what 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:48.559 it takes to fossilize a terosaur. 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:52.839 Yeah, and Cuvier who kind of got it all wrong 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:55.800 by calling it a pterodactyl for everyone in the future. 0:09:56.200 --> 0:09:59.360 He was actually the same dude though, who did say, actually, 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:03.240 I think those are not paddles, right, And that was, 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:04.520 you know, a big breakthrough. 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:07.240 Yeah, and the reason he called them pterodactyls it means 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:12.240 wing finger in the Greek, right, So terosar means winged 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:17.120 lizard and pterodactyl means wing finger because as we'll see, 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:20.120 the front edge of the wing, the leading edge of 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:23.720 the wing is actually an extraordinarily long pinky. 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:26.240 Yeah, that's a good way to put it. 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:28.120 I think so too. That's a good way to lead 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:29.520 up to a break too, don't you think? 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:30.040 Agreed? 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:38.560 Let's go Sish. 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:46.800 Well, now we're on the road, driving in your truck. 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:50.640 I want to learn a thing or two from Josh Chuck. 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:58.440 It's stuff you should know. All right, Okay, we're back. 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:00.240 I feel like we kind of jumbled things out up 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:04.240 like a bunch of TerraSAR bones. Sure, so let's reset here, 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:04.760 shall we? 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:11.920 Should we reset with the head? Let's the head crests. 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:16.360 If you've seen a movie like Jurassic Park and you 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:19.640 saw what you thought was a pterodactyl and he had 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:23.520 that beautiful looking he or she, well maybe he, because 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:26.400 now they think that maybe only the malesh these head crests. 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:33.439 These things were sort of one of the staples of many, 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:35.920 if not all, of these species, but they were all 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:41.240 really different and some fantastic looking, and they're not exactly sure. 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:43.280 There's still a lot of debate over what they used 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:44.120 these big crests for. 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:48.880 Yeah, they thought maybe they use them as a rudder 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:51.760 in the air to steer with as they are flying around. 0:11:51.920 --> 0:11:55.240 It does make sense. Some people thought that they may 0:11:55.400 --> 0:11:57.760 be used him as a marine rudder. Maybe they used 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:00.480 them for defense because they were like made of horn 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:03.920 and bone covered with skin, and they think possibly they 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:07.040 had coloring to them. Maybe they had feathers or light fur. 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:10.480 They're not quite sure. But because there's just such a 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:14.240 lack of understanding, and because terosaur fossils are so few 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:17.600 and far between, it's still basically anybody's guess what they 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:20.199 were used for. But then I think in Germany, and 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:23.480 I'm not exactly certain when this was discovered, but a 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:30.280 female terosaur was discovered and it had a or i 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:34.439 should say she had an egg in her oviduct. Still, 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:38.280 so it was the only terosaur to ever be positively 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:42.880 identified by sex in the history of the world. And 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:46.719 she lacked that headcrest, so it really lent support to 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:49.360 the idea that it was males only, kind of like 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:52.120 how a peacock has the very bright feathers and the 0:12:52.120 --> 0:12:55.199 p hen does not. They think that maybe it's the 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:58.920 same thing or more kin to, like antlers in deer 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:01.320 or moose. Their male are the ones that have the antlers, 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:03.120 and they think they use it, maybe a little bit 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:05.719 for a defense, but mostly to say, hey, I'm a 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:08.800 dude and I'm looking for some action. Check out the 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:11.360 sides of my antlers. They think it was probably the 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:12.400 same with tyrosaurs. 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:15.760 Now, yeah, and these things, like, it's amazing when you 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:18.360 look up these pictures. Some of them are just really 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:21.640 fantastically colored. Some of them are really big, like that 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:25.120 Tapahara imperator. 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:29.000 Yeah, if you look up one terasaar during this episode, 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:30.160 make it this guy. 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:32.439 Yeah, this is cool. This thing looks like it literally 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:35.040 has a sailboat sail on top of its. 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:38.800 Head, and like if the coloring is anywhere remotely like 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:42.120 what the artist's conceptions are. It just must have been 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:43.080 something to see. 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:48.680 Yeah, that niktosaurus is pretty interesting too. This one didn't 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:51.199 seem to have any sort of a It looked like 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:56.959 a sail without the sale, Like, what do you call 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:58.920 the frame of the sale. I'm sure there's some great 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:00.080 name for it. 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:02.480 The uh, the timber, the timber. 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:06.839 Sure, but these, I mean, it's they they like it 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:11.600 in this article the pump does to television intena and 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:15.240 they are really big and look only clunky to me. 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:19.840 Yeah, I mean it'd be good for skewering, I guess, 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:21.880 but it could also be terrible for skewing. Like if 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:24.760 you were hunting or spearing fish with it, you could 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:26.520 probably catch a lot of fish, but you couldn't get 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:29.280 the fish off because it's they're just these antenna We're 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:31.200 just way too tall and long. 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:34.280 Yeah. And then this terradustro is really you should look 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:37.440 that one up too, It's pretty amazing. This one looks 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:44.040 like this one looks like if a dinosaur mated with 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:46.880 a pelican and a toothbrush. 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:50.040 Yeah. I saw one person described it as a toothbrush 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:50.640 with wings. 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:54.720 Yeah, like the lower jaw has like a thousand really long, 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:58.320 small needle like teeth, and it looks like this big 0:14:58.360 --> 0:14:59.680 toothbrushy underbite. 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:01.760 Yeah, and it does. Like when you look at it, 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:03.920 you're like, oh, it's clearly got to be related to 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:06.440 a pelican. Again, it's not pelicans, a bird, and birds 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:09.000 were around during the time of dinosaurs, and if birds 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:12.280 are anything, they're actually the real flying dinosaurs. But it 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:15.760 does look a lot like it, and it makes sense 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:18.720 that it would because from what we're learning about pterosaurs 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:21.320 now these days is that a lot of them were 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:24.480 ocean going, that they had the goods to fly across 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:27.000 an entire ocean over the course of a few days, 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:30.720 like maybe an albatross wood, and that they would fly low, 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:34.000 some of them, and skim the surface of these ancient 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:39.400 oceans on Earth and scoop up marine life with their jaws, 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:42.840 with their lower jaw, just like a pelican would. So 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:46.640 what's even more interesting about that, besides the idea that 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:49.920 this is going on one hundred million years ago, is 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:54.080 that pelicans are not related to these things, so that 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:59.600 this trait, this behavior, this characteristic evolved more than one time. 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:02.160 You know what I'm saying. I find that fascinating rather 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:05.760 than saying, oh, pelicans descended from that, Actually they didn't. 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:09.320 That's just two different branches of the same tree developing 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:11.080 into something very similar. 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:13.000 Position in isolation. Didn't know what they call that. 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:21.440 Yeah, or no convergent evolution, Okay, I think yes, it is. 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:25.120 It's conversion evolution when like a trait or behavior characteristic 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:29.760 develops separately among different branches of the tree, rather than 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:33.440 developing once and then descendants all have that same trait. 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:37.960 Yeah. And although they did certainly love a good seafood meal, 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:40.720 they used to think that was sort of all they ate, 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:44.320 And now new research suggests that they do eat or 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:49.239 did eat, all kinds of things, even tiny dinosaurs. 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:51.840 Yeah. The way that they're they describe them now is 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:54.120 that it's just like birds, Right, You've got birds that 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:56.840 eat all sorts of different things, that fill all sorts 0:16:56.880 --> 0:17:00.240 of different ecological niches. That's what they're coming to to 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:03.560 the conclusion about with terosaurs, which I mean, chuck, this 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:05.919 is like a huge sea change from what it was 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:09.560 even back in the nineteen fifties or sixties or seventies, 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:11.960 and we thought there were just a few species, and 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:14.480 it turns out there were a ton of different ones 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:16.959 and a lot of variety and a lot of diversity, 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:19.399 and now we're starting to kind of get a handle 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:19.760 on that. 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:22.480 Yeah, and they think they were probably able after they 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:26.719 hatch to fly pretty quickly, to take care of themselves 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:32.000 pretty quickly, and like you mentioned, they're flying. They believe 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:35.160 now was they were kind of built for the long 0:17:35.240 --> 0:17:39.520 haul that it weren't super fast, but could you know, 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:41.720 like a long distance jetliner. 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:43.600 Right. 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:45.560 But some of them were small, some of them were 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:48.560 small songbirds, and I imagine they were flitty. Yeah. 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:50.240 I can't remember the name of one, but there was 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:53.719 one that was extremely tiny, a very tiny, little little 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:55.680 flying terosaur. 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:59.120 Could you imagine anything more frightening than what you would 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:01.080 call a terodactyl the size of a robin? 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:02.800 Yeah? 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:04.320 I imagine a hundred of those. 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:06.760 Or it could look kind of cool like the little 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:09.440 UFOs and batteries not included, remember those. 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:11.080 I didn't see that movie. 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:13.560 Do you remember like the ads or anything from it? Though? 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:14.160 No? 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:18.440 It was basically Cocoon, but set in a tenement and 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:24.480 with UFOs rather than the actual aliens. Okay, it was 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:27.359 very similar though, uh huh. I think Donna Michi was 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:28.480 in both Maybe. 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:31.280 Why not had he had that market cornered. 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:33.480 If you can get your hands on Donna Michi, you 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:34.680 put him in your movie. 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:36.840 Buddy, Yeah for sure. 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:41.560 So okay, where are we at, Chuck, Well, I. 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:45.359 Think we can go. We can hop over to the 0:18:45.359 --> 0:18:49.639 fact that for many years people thought we've already mentioned birds, 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:52.840 but bats was the other thing that people confused them with. 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:57.200 There was a an anatoby professor named Samuel Thomas von 0:18:57.280 --> 0:19:02.160 Summering in the eighteen hundred. He incorrectly suggested that these 0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:07.080 were bats. Another Paleontoller's named Harry Seely even wrote a 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:10.760 book called Dragons of the Sky in which he said 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:15.040 birds were the descendants of these And it's understandable why 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:17.639 these dudes were wrong. They were doing the best they could. 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:23.240 And when you look at those wings, it looks, you know, 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:25.840 that membrane, it looks like it would be a batswing. 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:27.560 But there are some differences. 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:30.400 Yeah, there's some big differences. And you like a bat 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:34.399 in particular, I could see confusing it with right, like 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:38.800 an ancient bat, because with a bat you have four digits, 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:43.280 and three of those digits form the bones in the wing, 0:19:43.600 --> 0:19:46.280 and you got one little digit wiggling free, so a 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:49.080 bat can climb around with its index fingers. Right, Yes, 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:53.280 with a terrasaar, you have three digits that are free, 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:55.840 and then the pinky. The fourth digit is the one 0:19:55.840 --> 0:20:03.240 that forms that long sometimes ten twenty feet long bone 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:05.480 that's the front ende of the wing. 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:07.560 Yeah, that's crazy, but they had three. 0:20:08.520 --> 0:20:12.159 They had three fingers free. And this is really significant 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:14.800 because before they used to think and if you go 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:18.399 back and you look at how pterodactyls were drawn in 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:21.680 like the middle of the twentieth century, when they weren't 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:25.880 in flight, they were probably standing on their back legs, 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:30.560 and they realized that this is probably not how pterosaurs stood. 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:36.840 That instead, because their forearms were far more powerful than 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:40.760 their back legs, they were probably quadrupeds, which meant that 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:45.439 they walked on all four legs, putting most of their 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:49.120 weight on their front way legs with their front forearms, 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:53.520 with their three free digits and their wings tucked off 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:57.399 to the side. And they look kind of like a 0:20:57.440 --> 0:21:01.360 cartoon bulldog walks, is what I'm seeing. That's what they 0:21:01.400 --> 0:21:02.320 think now. 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:04.400 Like a cartoon bulldog, not a real. 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:07.640 One, right, Well, I mean a real bulldog doesn't walk 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:12.119 quite like a cartoon. Bulldog cartoon. Bulldog's more exaggerated pronounced, 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:14.160 you know what I mean. Sure, it's a cartoon. 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:16.800 Should we take another break? Sure, all right, we'll do 0:21:16.880 --> 0:21:19.120 that and then we'll talk a little bit about how 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:21.680 they fly and other good stuff. 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:29.680 Right for this pterosaurs, Josh. 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:39.720 Suis, Well, now we're on the road, driving in your truck. 0:21:39.920 --> 0:21:42.760 I want to learn a thing or two from Josh 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:43.560 am Chuck. 0:21:43.840 --> 0:21:45.360 It's stuff you should. 0:21:45.240 --> 0:21:52.320 Know, should all right? All right, So you mentioned they 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:54.639 were quadrupedal m. 0:21:56.280 --> 0:21:58.080 Four footed, four footed. 0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:03.119 And initially they thought that they would like birds because 0:22:03.160 --> 0:22:05.840 we see birds do it, and it's probably especially back 0:22:05.840 --> 0:22:09.280 in the eighteen hundreds, it was maybe they were all 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:15.440 working off the notion of the easiest solution is probably correct, Yeah, 0:22:15.520 --> 0:22:17.960 because they would see a bird hop off those back 0:22:18.040 --> 0:22:21.240 legs and think, well, this is clearly what pterodactyls did. 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:24.159