WEBVTT - Pterosaurs: Not Flying Dinosaurs 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.560 Welcome to Stuff you should know from how Stuff Works 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:13.600 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:16.560 There's Charles w Chuck Bryants. Just the two of us 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:20.840 batching it today. Yeah, that's what my dad used to 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:22.400 say if he had to take care of me while 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:25.319 my mom was working. We're just batching it? Is that? 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:28.520 What was that what he said? Yeah? I thought that 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:31.960 was a relatively new term. No, I mean at least 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:35.720 the early eighties, right, Maybe my dad was like way 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:37.800 ahead of his time. Why hasn't there been a movie 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:41.800 called batching it? I I don't know. That's actually pretty obvious. 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:44.800 The fact that it was around as a word in 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:47.199 the eighties makes me even more surprised that there's not 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:51.120 a movie called batching it that, like the protagonist has 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:53.080 to put on like a car wash to save their 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:57.080 business or something like that. Yeah, Owen Wilson, what did 0:00:57.080 --> 0:00:59.600 he do? Well? He would just be the star batching 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:03.680 it imagine, right, I guess. So could that guy be 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:07.080 any more charming than he is? He's pretty charming. Speaking 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:12.039 of charming, Chuck, let me introduce you to a wonderful 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:19.160 little beast named Ketze Colatus North ropy. Mhm are you 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:24.640 are you familiar? So ketzo colatus is named after the 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:30.959 Aztec flying serpent god quetzal Coat, right, so it makes sense. 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:34.480 But this guy was a real thing. Not to put 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:37.160 down the Aztecs beliefs or anything like that, but this 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:41.520 is a verifiable beast at one point, particularly in the 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:45.600 late Cretaceous period, and it's what you would probably call 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:48.720 a pterodactyl. But if you call it a pterodactyl, you'd 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:51.840 be dead wrong, pal. What it really is is a 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:56.400 terrace sore. And there's a lot of misunderstandings that we're 0:01:56.400 --> 0:01:59.360 going to sort through, but the most important point is 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:02.880 that this east right here is twenty ft tall, as 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:06.240 tall as a giraffe, and it had a wingspan akin 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:09.680 to about an F sixteen fighter jet. And it was 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:15.680 a bad mama jama. That's that for ding. That's good. 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:19.520 I like it. I didn't even use the way back machine, 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:23.120 just trimmed the fat. Gone, oh you do. You don't 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:25.920 even need that old clunky thing anymore. We just use 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:28.880 our imaginations. Were not actually in the Cretaceous period like 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:32.000 we would be if we had used the way back machine. Okay, 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:35.480 uh yeah, these terra starts with the p of course, 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:40.359 a silent p um that is from Greek meaning winged lizards. 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:45.200 And that's pretty on point because they were reptiles. They 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:50.079 were not dinosaurs. Yes, big big distinction here. They're close, 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:53.560 it's like a sister to a dinosaur. Perhaps they're from 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:56.880 the same claude, which is arcasaurs, but it's a really 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:58.800 wide claude. And all that means is that they have 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:03.320 in the very remote asked some single common ancestor with dinosaurs. Yeah, 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:06.360 and they were. They were around roughly the same time 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:10.359 period and definitely and went away in the same fashion. 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:14.080 So it's it's normal, i think for people to say, 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:17.720 look at that pterodactyl, look at that flying dinosaur, even 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:21.320 though neither one of those is necessarily correct. Yeah, So, 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:24.880 just to get this across one more time, pterosaurs were 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:29.560 not flying dinosaurs. They were flying reptiles, but they weren't dinosaurs. 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:33.280 They weren't birds either, And to confuse things even further, 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:37.360 there were birds around at the time of the dinosaurs 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:40.320 and the time of the pterosaurs. And to confuse things 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:44.960 even further, there were such things as actual flying dinosaurs 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:53.360 we call them velociraptors, right, and these vertebrates. Actually we're 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:58.400 flying long before birds and bats by like millions and 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:01.400 millions of years. Yeah, think this How Stuff Works article. 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:03.520 This is a good one. I gotta give big ups 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:07.640 to Clint um pump Free. Yeah, pretty good. Yeah, it 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:13.000 sounds like an action how Stuff Works writer chest be Frock. 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:17.560 You know, uh um but he he said, I think 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:21.240 eighty million years difference. Eighty million years before. Yeah, I 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:25.200 mean that's that's a lot of years it is. Um. 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:27.960 So there's a lot of like confusing stuff flying around. 0:04:28.200 --> 0:04:29.880 And I think there's one other thing we should probably 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:32.599 address right out of the gate is that you you 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:35.280 you shouldn't call them pterod actyls, even though a lot 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:39.600 of people do. Pterod Actyls are actually a specific genus 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:44.719 of pterosaurs. Um, So to call all pterosaurs pterod actyls 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:50.279 would be incorrect. But you could call all pterod actyls pterosaurs, okay. Yeah. 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:53.280 And and technically, like if you have seen this this 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:56.040 thing in movies a lot that they say that's a pterodactyl, 0:04:56.600 --> 0:04:59.440 what you've probably been looking at this whole time is 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:03.360 one of the the species. And there you know, potentially 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:06.600 up to two hundred of these species right now. I 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:11.080 think they've identified about a hundred hundred thirty ish. But 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:16.640 a tara uh tara no done is how you'd say it. 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:21.719 I that's what I would have gone, like, Tara no 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:25.080 down right. That's probably what you've been seeing in movies 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:27.800 all this time that you've been saying, that's a pterodactyl. 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:29.920 Like if you if you look up an image search 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:35.280 of the Torontodon, you'll say that that's a pterodactyl because 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:37.359 I saw it in King Kong. Yeah, it's like this 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:40.160 giant wing beast with kind of short, stubby legs and 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:42.599 a huge wing span and like a weird crest on 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:45.400 its head in a long pointy beak. A pterodactyl. Everybody 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:47.839 knows what a pterodactyl is. Don't be an idiot. Yeah, 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:50.920 you saw in King Konge. Saw the same thing in 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:54.799 Jurassic Park three in two thousand one. Right, things hadn't 0:05:54.920 --> 0:05:57.400 changed all that much. But in that time span, it's 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:01.640 actually kind of surprising because our under standing of um 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:05.680 tara stars had increased dramatically, and yet we were still 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:09.880 just basically thinking of them exclusively as pterod actyls, which 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:13.120 isn't the case. Yeah, there was a paleontologist named O. C. 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:19.760 Marsh who, Uh, it's a pretty good name for a paleontologist. Uh. 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:24.320 He collected these first fossils and what is now and 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:28.919 was then Western Kansas in the late eight hundreds, like 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:33.200 eighteen seventy, and they've been well. I was about to say, 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:35.600 they've been digging up lots of these since then. They 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:39.440 sort of have, but uh, not nearly as many as 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:44.160 other types of fossils, because these fossils are really highly 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:48.280 breakable and dissolvable and uh, they're they're tough to get 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:51.280 a hold of and keeping one piece throughout the process. Yeah, 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:53.159 we should, we should talk about that. Like, one of 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:55.880 the reasons there is so little understanding of tara stars 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:59.440 is because they don't fossilize very well now because their 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:02.800 bones were not designed to be fossilized. They were designed 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:07.200 to allow these giant reptiles to fly. They didn't say like, oh, 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:10.240 we need to be designed to leave our mark later. No, 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:13.520 it's like we want to fly right exactly. So early on, 0:07:13.600 --> 0:07:17.560 I think the first tarodon or the first terrasaur Um 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:21.280 specimen was found in the late eighteenth century in Germany 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:23.640 Um and by the time O. C. Marsh was digging 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:27.800 them up a hundred years later in Kansas Um. They've 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:30.120 they've been discovered, but they'd also just kind of been 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:33.920 abandoned because there were very few follow up fossils that 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:36.960 were identified, right, So when O. C. Marsh started to 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:40.160 dig him up, this is a big deal. And because 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:43.560 he was finding virtually all of the same species, the 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:50.000 taranodon um, that became the common conception of the the 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:53.560 what the terrasaar is. But it was coupled with an 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:57.800 earlier named Pterodactyl that had been given to the the 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:03.000 entire uh species or the entire group by George Cuvier 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:06.480 and I think eighteen twelve. Yeah, and that first fossil 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:09.280 you're talking about, no one knows. No one got credit 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:12.080 for that, for digging that thing up. But like you said, 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:15.120 it was in Germany in a lime in limestone, like 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:18.320 a hundred and fifty million year old limestone late in 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:23.360 the eighteenth century that eventually found its way to a 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:28.920 man with a great name, uh Cosimo Alessandro Collini. Man. 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:31.320 When I first came across this in his article, I 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:33.360 was like, I'm looking forward to hearing Chuck say that 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:36.400 guy's name that's him. He was Italian go figure, and 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:40.160 he was a natural scientist, and he, like many others 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:42.840 to follow, for a long time, didn't really know what 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:46.760 it was, since since he they found that in an 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:52.320 ancient lagoon with all kinds of seafaring creatures, he understandably 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:55.360 thought it was a seafaring creature. Yeah. And some of 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:58.240 the best perverse preserved fossils that we have of these 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:02.240 things are found in things like lagoons where something happened 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:06.960 to them. They died, suddenly quickly fell into a like 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:10.080 a body of water um which probably broke their fall 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:12.640 a little bit. They landed at the muck. Then we're 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:17.800 covered up potentially in some anaerobic um in an anaerobic state, 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:22.240 and eventually became fossilized very gently. That's what it takes 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:26.600 to to fossilize a terra star. Yeah. And Cuvier, who 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:29.520 um kind of got it all wrong by calling it 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:32.920 a pterodactyl for everyone in the future. He was actually 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:35.600 the same dude though, who did say, actually, I think 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:39.560 those are wings, not paddles, and that was, you know, 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:41.959 a big breakthrough. Yeah, And the reason he called them 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:46.720 pterodactyls it means wing finger in the Greek. Right, so 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:51.520 tara saw means winged lizard and pterodactyl means wing finger 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:55.080 because as we'll see, the the front edge of the wing, 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:58.920 the leading edge of the wing is actually an extraordinarily 0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:02.240 long pinky. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:03.880 I think so too. It that's a good way to 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:06.040 lead up to a break too, don't you think? Agreed? 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:22.240 Let's go. Well, now we're on the road, driving in 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:25.200 your truck. Want to learn a thing or two from 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:34.000 Josh can chuck. It's stuff you should know. All right, Okay, 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:35.920 we're back. I feel like we kind of jumbled things 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:39.200 up like a bunch of terra star bones. Sure, so 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:42.839 let's reset here, shall we? Should we reset with the 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:49.840 head let's the head crests. If you've seen a movie 0:10:50.480 --> 0:10:53.240 like Jurassic Park, and you saw what you thought was 0:10:53.240 --> 0:10:56.839 a pterodactyl and that and he had that beautiful looking 0:10:57.160 --> 0:10:59.760 he or she, well maybe maybe he, because now they 0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:05.680 think maybe only the males. But these head crests, uh, 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:08.880 these things were sort of one of the staples of 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:11.439 of many, if not all, of these species. But they 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:16.280 were all really different and some fantastic looking, and they're 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:18.720 not exactly sure. There's still a lot of debate over 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:22.760 what they use these big crests for. Yeah, they thought 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:25.439 maybe they use them as a rudder in the air 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:29.559 to steer with and the flying around. It does make sense, um. 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:32.000 Some people thought that they may be used them as 0:11:32.000 --> 0:11:34.800 a marine rudder. Maybe they used them for defense because 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:38.319 they were like made of horn and bone covered with skin, 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:41.320 and they think possibly they had coloring to them, maybe 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:44.440 they had feathers or light for They're not quite sure. 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:47.760 But because there's just such a lack of understanding, and 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:51.000 because tara saur fossils are so few and far between, 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:54.160 it's still basically anybody's guess what they were used for. 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:57.440 But then I think in Germany, I'm not exactly certain 0:11:57.480 --> 0:12:02.600 when this was discovered, but a email TerraSAR was discovered 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:06.840 um a and it had a or I should say 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:10.920 she had an egg in her um overducts. Still, so 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:14.240 it was the only terra star to ever be positively 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:18.360 identified by sex um in the history of the world. 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:22.640 And she lacked that headcrest, so it really lent support 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:25.200 to the idea that it was males only, kind of 0:12:25.240 --> 0:12:27.960 like how a peacock has the very bright feathers and 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:31.120 the p hen does not. They think that maybe it's 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:34.520 the same thing or more kin to like antlers in 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:36.720 Dear or Moose. They're males are the ones that have 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:38.679 the antlers, and they think they use it maybe a 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:41.640 little bit for defense, but mostly to say, hey, I'm 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:44.679 a dude and I'm looking for some action. Check out 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:47.280 the sides of my antlers. They think it was probably 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:50.920 the same with Tira sars now. Yeah, and these things, like, uh, 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:52.920 it's amazing when you look up these pictures. Some of 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:56.520 them are just really fantastically colored. Some of them are 0:12:56.559 --> 0:13:02.400 really big, like that Tapahara imperator. Yeah, if you look 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:06.560 up one terrace are during this episode, make it this guy. Yeah, 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:08.800 this is cool. This thing looks like it literally has 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:11.880 a sailboat sail on top of its head. It's and 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:15.240 like if the coloring is anywhere remotely like what the 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:19.640 artist's conceptions are, it just must have been something to see. Yeah, 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:24.360 that nicktosaurus is pretty interesting too. Um, this this one 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:27.200 didn't seem to have any sort of it looked like 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:32.720 a sail, uh without the sail, Like, what do you 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:34.720 call the frame of the sail. I'm sure there's some 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:38.920 great name for it, the uh the timber, the timber, sure, 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:43.920 but these I mean it's they liken it in this article. Uh, 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:48.120 the pump does two television into a and they are 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:53.240 really big and look only clunky to me. Yeah, I 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:56.000 mean it would be good for skewering, I guess, but 0:13:56.080 --> 0:13:57.920 it could also be terrible for screwing. Like if you 0:13:57.960 --> 0:14:01.080 were hunting or spearing fish with it, you could probably 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:02.599 catch a lot of fish, but you couldn't get the 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:05.400 fish off because it's they're just these antenna We're just 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:08.439 way too tall and long. Yeah. And then this terra 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:10.480 dusto is really um, you should look at that one 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:15.400 up to it's pretty amazing. This one looks like this 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:20.840 one looks like if a dinosaur mated with a pelican 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:25.280 and a toothbrush. Yeah. I saw one person described it 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:27.880 as a toothbrush with wings. Yeah. The like the lower 0:14:27.960 --> 0:14:32.160 jaw has like a thousand really long small needle like teeth, 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:36.480 and it looks like this big toothbrushy underbyte. Yeah, and 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:38.200 it does. Like when you look at it, you're like, oh, 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:41.120 it's clearly gotta be related to a pelican. Again, it's not. 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:44.239 Pelicans and birden birds are around during the time of dinosaurs, 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:47.640 and if birds are anything, they're actually the real flying dinosaurs. 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:51.080 But it does look a lot like it, and it 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:53.720 makes sense that it would because from what we're learning 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:56.720 about Tera saurs now these days, is that a lot 0:14:56.800 --> 0:14:59.360 of them were ocean going, that they had the goods 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:02.360 to fly across an entire ocean over the course of 0:15:02.360 --> 0:15:05.440 a few days, like maybe an albatross would um, and 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:08.320 that they would fly low, some of them and skim 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:12.720 the surface of these ancient oceans in on Earth and 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:15.480 scoop up marine life with their with their jaws, with 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:18.920 their lower jaw, just like a pelican would um. So 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:22.520 what's what's even more interesting about that, besides the idea 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:25.160 that this is going on a hundred million years ago, 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:29.840 is that pelicans are not related to these things, so 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:34.320 that this this trait, this behavior, this characteristic evolved more 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:37.160 than one time. You know what I'm saying. I find 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:40.720 that fascinating Rather than saying, oh, pelicans descended from that, 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:43.960 Actually they didn't. That's just two different branches of the 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:48.640 same tree developing into something very similar. And what they 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:56.560 call it um yeah or no convert convergent evolution. I 0:15:56.600 --> 0:15:59.160 think yes, it is it's conversion evolution, when like a 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:04.000 trait or behave of your characteristic develops separately among different 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:07.400 branches of the tree, rather than developing once and then 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:11.200 descendants all have that same trait. Yeah. And although they 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:15.160 did certainly love a good seafood meal, uh, they used 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:17.480 to think that was sort of all they ate, and 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:21.960 now new research suggests that they do eat or did eat, uh, 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:26.440 all kinds of things, even tiny dinosaurs. Yeah. The way 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:28.400 that they're they describe them now is that it's just 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:30.880 like birds. Right, You've got birds that eat all sorts 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:34.560 of different things that fill all sorts of different ecological niches. 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:38.320 That's what they're coming to to the conclusion about with terasaurs, 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:40.880 Which I mean, Chuck, this is like a huge sea 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:43.760 change from what it was even back in the nineteen 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:46.480 fifties or sixties or seventies, and we thought there were 0:16:46.520 --> 0:16:49.040 just a few species, and it turns out there were 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:51.720 a ton of different ones and a lot of variety 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:54.400 and a lot of diversity. And now we're starting to 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:56.880 kind of get a handle on that. Yeah, and they 0:16:56.960 --> 0:16:59.880 think they were probably able after they hatched to fly 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:05.520 pretty quickly to take care of themselves pretty quickly. Um and, 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:09.960 like you mentioned, they're flying they believe now? Was they 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:12.879 were kind of built for the long haul. Um did. 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:16.120 Weren't super fast, but could you know, like a long 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:21.080 distance jet liner? Right? But some of them there were small, 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:23.600 Some of them were smallest songbirds, and I imagine they 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:25.800 were flitty. Yeah. I can't remember the name of one, 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:28.600 but there was one that was extremely tiny, a very tiny, 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:33.760 little little flying pterosaur. Could you imagine anything more frightening 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:36.520 than what you would call a pterodactyl the size of 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:40.960 a robin? Yeah? I imagine a hundred of those, or 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:43.399 it could look kind of cool like the little UFOs 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:46.919 and batteries not included, remember those. I didn't see that movie. 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:49.840 Do you remember like the ads or anything from it? Though? No? 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:54.640 It was basically Cocoon, but set in a tenement and 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:59.840 um and with UFOs rather than the actual aliens. Okay, 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:03.159 it was very similar though, huh. I think Donna Michi 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:07.280 was in both. Maybe why not? He had that market cornered. 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:09.480 If you can get your hands on Donna Michi, you 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:14.200 put him in your movie, buddy, Yeah for sure. So okay, 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:18.040 where are we at, Chuck? Well? I think we can 0:18:18.200 --> 0:18:21.840 go we can hop over to um the fact that 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:25.720 for many years people thought we've already mentioned birds, but 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:28.800 bats was the other thing that people confused them with. 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:33.760 There was a an anatoby professor named Samuel Thomas von Summering, 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:38.160 and in the eighteen hundreds he incorrectly suggested that these 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:43.000 were bats. Another paleon Teller's named Harry Seeley even wrote 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:46.480 a book called Dragons of the Sky in which he 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:49.840 said birds were the descendants of these uh. And it's 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:52.600 a it's understandable why these dudes were wrong. They were 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:55.520 doing the best they could. And when you look at 0:18:55.600 --> 0:19:00.080 those wings, uh, it looks you know, that membrane, it 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:02.320 looks like it would be a bat swing. But there 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:05.240 are there are some differences. Yeah, there's some big differences. 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:08.040 And you like a bat in particular, I could see 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:12.040 confusing it with right, like an ancient bat, because with 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:16.760 a bat, you have four digits, and three of those 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:20.080 digits form the bones in the wing, and you've got 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:22.960 one little digit wiggling free, so a bat can climb 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:26.600 around with its index fingers. Right, with a terra star, 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:30.320 you have three digits that are free and then the pinky. 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:33.399 The fourth digit is the one that forms that long 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:41.440 sometimes ten long bone that's the front ende of the wing. 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:46.000 But they had three uh, they had three fingers free. 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:49.879 And this is really significant because before they used to 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:51.880 think and if you go back and you look at 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:55.199 how pterodactyls were drawn in like the middle of the 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:59.240 twentieth century, UM, when they weren't in flight, they're probably 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:03.600 standing on their back legs, and they realized that this 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:09.480 is probably not how terasaurs stood that instead, because the 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:12.800 the the their foe arms were far more powerful than 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:16.760 their back legs, they were probably quadrupeds, which meant that 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:21.200 they um walked on all four legs using putting most 0:20:21.240 --> 0:20:24.080 of their weight on their front way legs with their 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:27.920 front floor arms, with their three free digits, and their 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:32.280 their wings tucked off to the side. Um. And they 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:35.600 look kind of like like a cartoon bulldog walks, is 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:38.560 what I'm seeing. That's what they think now, Like a 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:42.320 cartoon bulldog, not a real one. Right, well, I mean 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:45.160 a real bulldog doesn't walk quite like a cartoon bulldog. 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:48.720 Cartoon bulldogs more exaggerated and pronounced. You know what I mean, 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:52.479 It's a cartoon. Should we take another break? All right, 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:54.119 we'll do that, and then we'll talk a little bit 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:57.840 about how they fly and and other good stuff. Right 0:20:57.880 --> 0:21:15.040 after this terrasaurs, Well, now we're on the road driving 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:17.600 in your truck. Want to learn a thing or two 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:24.200 from Josh can chuck. It's stuff you should know, all right, 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:32.920 all right, So you mentioned they were quadrupedal mhm, four footed, 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:37.600 four footed, and initially they thought that they would like 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:40.760 birds because we see birds do it, and it's probably 0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:44.920 especially back in the eighteen hundreds, it was, uh, maybe 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:49.640 they're all working off the notion of the easiest solution 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:53.280 is probably correct because they would see a bird hop 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:56.080 off those back legs and think, well, this is clearly 0:21:56.080 --> 0:21:58.880 what ptero dactyls did. Yeah, yeah, and I never thought 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:00.880 about that, But that's like exctuly what a bird does. 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:03.200 It jumps up in the air from its back legs 0:22:03.200 --> 0:22:06.239 and flaps its wings and then provides lift from that 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:09.680 point on using its wings. Yeah. I'd never really thought 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:12.520 about that, but that's how birds fly. Yeah, they hop 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:14.679 around and if they want to. And and it's funny. 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:17.399 One of the other articles you sent, uh, one of 0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:20.760 those guys believed the palion Tallers believes that it even 0:22:20.800 --> 0:22:23.919 evolved into flying that they used to hop around on 0:22:24.040 --> 0:22:28.000 four legs, and eventually they started jumping higher and higher 0:22:28.560 --> 0:22:31.159 and then started flapping and then before you knew what 0:22:31.160 --> 0:22:34.480 they were flying. Yeah, maybe they went from leaping to 0:22:34.680 --> 0:22:39.320 gliding to flying. Um, And they don't know. Again, they 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:42.800 haven't found what you would call a proto um terrace 0:22:42.840 --> 0:22:48.560 star like whatever was the link between ancient reptiles and terrasaurs. 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:51.160 But um, that's kind of the current guess right now 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:53.959 is that they evolved from some small light lizard that 0:22:54.080 --> 0:22:57.119 was good at jumping. Yeah, and there they one of 0:22:57.119 --> 0:22:59.440 the big keys and finding out and I don't think 0:22:59.440 --> 0:23:03.240 you said this how strong their arms were. Yeah, that 0:23:03.240 --> 0:23:05.959 that sort of was a big breakthrough because when you 0:23:06.000 --> 0:23:10.639 think of like, you think it all comes from the 0:23:10.720 --> 0:23:15.000 legs because they're jumping. But because they found more fossils, 0:23:15.400 --> 0:23:17.919 they realized they were a quadrupedal and they said, man, 0:23:18.000 --> 0:23:21.440 they actually have incredibly strong arms and shoulders and these 0:23:21.440 --> 0:23:25.520 little tiny feet. So not only are the quadrupedal, but 0:23:25.600 --> 0:23:29.160 a lot of that initial hopping lift may come from 0:23:29.160 --> 0:23:33.480 the arms and not the legs at all. So they think, 0:23:33.600 --> 0:23:35.639 now what they do is so it's just basically pushed 0:23:35.640 --> 0:23:38.600 themselves off their front arms and legs to an extent, 0:23:38.640 --> 0:23:41.600 and it just basically hop up into the air and 0:23:41.640 --> 0:23:44.800 then start flapping their wings rather than like a bird 0:23:44.880 --> 0:23:47.440 jumping off of their back legs. Is that what you mean? Yeah? 0:23:47.480 --> 0:23:50.360 And then but most of that comes from the from 0:23:50.359 --> 0:23:53.080 the arms and shoulders rather than the feet, and the 0:23:53.119 --> 0:23:57.120 feet I think just sort of drag behind. Uh and 0:23:57.200 --> 0:24:00.480 perhaps maybe helped with steering, Is that right? Uh? Yeah? 0:24:00.520 --> 0:24:03.800 And they so there you can actually divide terosaurs into 0:24:03.800 --> 0:24:07.240 two groups depending on when they they were around. One 0:24:07.440 --> 0:24:10.240 started around a hundred and fifty million years ago, and 0:24:10.280 --> 0:24:13.720 then one came later. And the first groups had long tails. 0:24:14.000 --> 0:24:16.600 So if you look at old drawings of pterot actyls, 0:24:16.800 --> 0:24:19.439 you'll frequently see with kind of like a long forked 0:24:19.600 --> 0:24:23.960 devil's tail, you know, and that it's actually kind of accurate. 0:24:24.000 --> 0:24:26.680 They think that the original ones had longer tails to 0:24:26.800 --> 0:24:29.760 learn to steer in the air. But then as they 0:24:29.760 --> 0:24:34.760 got more and more UM adapted to flying gracefully, they 0:24:34.800 --> 0:24:37.040