HOME | DD
Pappasaurus β The Stork of the Cretaceous.
Published: 2014-05-05 02:54:02 +0000 UTC; Views: 732; Favourites: 28; Downloads: 3
Redirect to original
Description
Here is a picture in the Late Cretaceous evening in Texas, about 68 million years ago, a small flock of Quetzalcoatlus, was searching on a nesting grounds, hunting small animals, like the newly hatched Alamosaurus babies, are following the mother's footsteps heading into the deep forests for a safe place to feed and hide, but the Alamosaurus hatchling was no match for this giant flyer with a 40 foot wingspan, but it could gulp down a little newborn dinosaur whole!Related content
Comments: 125
No but Quetzalcoatlus don't hunt large prey, but It only hunted fish, small animals, carrion, and dinosaur hatchlings. and I know it right?
π: 0 β©: 1
It didn't eat carrion or fish.
It was eating much larger prey than you would think-not picking babies off the ground but chasing down larger dinosaurs.
π: 0 β©: 2
You've got to be kidding me. I highly doubt a lightly-built pterosaur would go after a hadrosaur. Looks like somebodies been watching too much Jurassic Fight Club.
π: 0 β©: 1
You do realize these thing aren't that lightly built correct?
π: 0 β©: 1
Quetzalcoatlus was a skinny animal. Any pterosaur would stand no chance against an angry bulky hadrosaur.
π: 0 β©: 1
a 5-6 ton dinosaur is much larger than medium-sized.....
π: 0 β©: 1
If Quetzalcoatlus did eat dinosaurs, it would have eaten baby hadrosaurs, small ornithopods and small theropods (dromeosaurs, troodonts, etc.). An adult hadrosaur could easily break it's bones or stomp it to death.
π: 0 β©: 1
I never said it ate adults. at 6 tons they would be too big.
π: 0 β©: 1
I was talking about 1 ton juveniles (hit-and-run technique) not the full size adolescents or adults.
π: 0 β©: 2
Here's what Darrien Nash has to say. I highlighted the main points that refute your superpredator idea in bold. I know he's talking about mid-air grabbing but it would still apply to a one ton animal that could easily kill a 550 pound pterosaur.
The possibility that azhdarchids were aerial predators of smaller flying animals [18] has not gained acceptance among pterosaur workers. Unlike modern raptorial birds, pterosaurs hawking airborne prey would have to rely on their jaws for prey capture rather than their limbs: employment of any limb in mid-air prey capture would compromise the wing membrane and stall the wing. Correspondingly, azhdarchids do not bear raptorial claws on any appendage that could be used to subdue prey in this manner. Extant volant tetrapods that employ oral apprehension of aerial prey have short, wide skulls and often possess deep mandibular symphyses [112], [113], a condition that contrasts markedly with the elongate, narrow azhdarchid skull They also tend to be relatively small, fast and agile fliers with below-average wing loading and moderately high aspect ratios [85], but while the wing loadings of modern aerial hawkers are comparable to those restored for azhdarchids, their aspect ratios are far higher. Consequently, azhdarchids would be slow, cumbersome fliers in comparison. Members of the pterosaur clade Anurognathidae conform to these criteria far better and are hence usually regarded as having been aerial insectivores convergent with swifts, nightjars and some microbats [23], [24], [114]. Given that azhdarchids were large, relatively narrow-skulled animals with stiff necks and wings better adapted for gentle gliding than high-velocity pursuit, the hypothesis that they were capable of routine aerial predation of other volant animals can be rejected.
π: 0 β©: 1
they are LAND hunters. they did not eat on the wing. In fact that is exactly what I was saying.
π: 0 β©: 1
But still. Even the one ton juveniles were heavier than a Quetzalcoalus and could severely injure or even kill one.
OnΒ a semi-related note are you honestly convinced that every large carnivorous (or even herbivorous/omnivorous ones cuz they're so much cooler when they're predators) archosaur was some badass superpredator?
π: 0 β©: 1
That is why I specifically said hit and run, because it certainly isn't going to survive a prolonged combat.
Nope, otherwise I would actually be insane.
π: 0 β©: 1
But still. It would be far easier and more sane to goΒ after prey thatΒ weighs less than you. Also Tyrannosaurs already had the Hadrosaur thing covered.
If you want a pterosaur super-predator, you should look at Thalassodromeus which had skull design similar to terror birds.
π: 0 β©: 1
I agree that Thalassodromeus is another pterosaur superpredator (Dsungaripterus and Harpactognathus seem to be in this category as well), but why not the biggest pterosaurs ever that were well suited to moving on land?
π: 0 β©: 1
Dsungaripterus? Really? That was probably a shellfish eater because of it's teeth. Harpactognathus preferred small prey. Read up on pterosaur biology. Where do you get your asinine beliefs?
Quetzalcoatlus was not adapted for eating one ton prey. It was not as robust as Hatzeg (which lived on an island with dwarf animals BTW) and it did not have the powerful bite of Thalassodromeus.
π: 0 β©: 1
The shellfish crusher actually lived inland according to an isotope analysis so it makes sense the teeth were for crushing bone.
Harpactognathus ate prey relatively large for itself.
Yes it is more generalized but desperate times call for desperate actions.
π: 0 β©: 1
Because there are never any shellfish in rivers and lakes. Can you show me a link to that analysis?
Where do you get this stuff?Β Harpactognathus was a typicalΒ rhamphorhynchid.
If it was desperate it would go to scavenging.
π: 0 β©: 1
www.davehone.co.uk/wp-content/β¦
π: 0 β©: 1
That doesn't say anything. It was talking about terrestrial and marine. It didn't say anything about freshwater enviornments.
π: 0 β©: 1
still it does seem more likely this was a bone crusher.
π: 0 β©: 1
It's far more likely it was crushing hard-shelled invertabrates (which are found on land too BTW). It wasn't a robust animal.
Also that isotope study you showed me? The speciman used could have been an animal that wandered far from the sea during migration or something. It doesn't necessarily represent the typical habitat of an animal.
π: 0 β©: 1
Isotopes are laid down in bones over a long time so unless that specimen was a freak individual I doubt it was an wanderer.
And considering that large land snails are warm-climate species and that Mesozoic China was a cold mountain area I don't think there would be much of an mollusk resource.
π: 0 β©: 1
What part of the body was examined for isotopes?
As for the bone-crushing, I doubt it. Look at T. Rex. It was a bone crusher and it did not have flat teeth.Β Plus Dsungaripterus had a pair of "tweezers" at the tip of it's snout. Hardly suitible for bone crunching.
π: 0 β©: 1
Wouldn't it be the molar-like rear teeth that would crush?
π: 0 β©: 1
T. Rex did not have molar like rear teeth.
Even if it didn't live by the ocean, there were still invertabrates in the lakes and rivers.
π: 0 β©: 1
But the function of the teeth is obviously to crush things.
π: 0 β©: 1
Could easily be used to crush hard-shelled invertebrates. The "tweezers" at the tip of the beak would have been used to extract the soft flesh parts from the shell.
π: 0 β©: 1
It could also be used to crush necks and bones and the tweezers would remove the marrow.
π: 0 β©: 1
There is zero evidence for that. The bodyΒ plan was poorly adapted for handling large prey. Β Also has that isotope study been even peer-reviewd? What part of the body was examined?
π: 0 β©: 1
you don't need to grapple your prey when you kill by crushing the neck instantly.
π: 0 β©: 1
You didn't answer my question. Was that paper peer reviewed and what part of the body were the isotopes taken from?
π: 0 β©: 1
The paper was reviewed as far as I know and the different parts shouldn't make much of a difference.
π: 0 β©: 1
Globidens (a shellfish eating Mosasaur) has similar teeth.
π: 0 β©: 1
I know but it was marine not freshwater or terrestrial.
π: 0 β©: 1
Because there are no hard-shelled invertebrates in fresh water or on land...
π: 0 β©: 1
Because there usually isn't enough large invertebrates for a large specialist in these places....
π: 0 β©: 1
Invertabrates don't have bones. They aren't as easily preserved as vertebrates.
π: 0 β©: 1
But shells are even more easily preserbed than bones.
π: 0 β©: 1
Preservation bias. Not everything gets fossilized.Β
π: 0 β©: 1
But shells are very likely to become fossilized due to bias.
π: 0 β©: 1
One species of Dsungaripterid lacked teeth. I don't know how it could be a super predator like that. Also there are Dsungaripterids that lived in South America which is wear known marine pterosaurs were found.
The only known fossils so far found in the Junggar Basin are Guanlong, Dsungaripterus and Junggarsuchus. This suggests preservation bias.
π: 0 β©: 1
But it shells are there they would have been preserved BECAUSE of the bias.
π: 0 β©: 1
Did you read my last comment? Only three fossils were found in the Junggar basin. This suggests fossils wouldn't be common there.
π: 0 β©: 1
Yes but the ratio would still be skewed towards shells it they were present.
π: 0 β©: 1
If only three fossils were found then that indicates preservation bias.
π: 0 β©: 1
The preservation bias works against shells being present. If they were there the fossils would be biased TOWARDS shells not towards vertebrates.
π: 0 β©: 1
But clearly not as no shellfish have been found in that area as far as I know. The scarcity of fossils suggests preservation bias is at work.
π: 0 β©: 1
If there were shellfish I would assume they would be the most common fossils.
π: 0 β©: 1
| Next =>