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Sunday 5 February 2012

Other Big Birds Possibly Being Reported as Pterosaurs

Prehistoric bird sets wingspan record

Enormous bony-toothed bird's wingspan was at least 17feet       

Image: Prehistoric bird
Artwork by Carlos Anzures
Sept. 15, 2010 — This prehistoric bird weighed about 64 pounds and belonged to a group known as pelagornithids — birds characterized by long, slender beaks bearing many spiny, tooth-like projections. It's now thought that 17 feet may be close to the maximum wingspan that can be achieved by a flying bird because of weight and other complications.
By
updated 9/15/2010 12:23:01 PM ET2010-09-15T16:23:01
Soaring the Chilean skies 5-10 million years ago, an enormous bony-toothed bird has set the world wingspan record. The bird's wingspan was at least 17 feet, according to scientists.
The measurement is based on well preserved wing bones from the newly named bird species, Pelagornis chilensis, a.k.a. "huge pseudoteeth" from Chile. The animal weighed about 64 pounds and belonged to a group known as pelagornithids — birds characterized by long, slender beaks bearing many spiny, tooth-like projections.
It's now thought that 17 feet may be close to the maximum wingspan that can be achieved by a flying bird. Prior wingspan estimates for pelagornithids went up to 20 feet, but they were based on more fragmented fossils.
"Most likely, evolution of such large sizes was to avoid competition with other birds," lead author Gerald Mayr, a paleornithologist at the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum, told Discovery News. "Birds with such a large size can, of course, sail across huge distances and may more easily find prey in the open ocean."
However, "there are a number of drawbacks if you become so large," he added. Chicks would have to be raised over a long period of time, making them more prone to predation.
"Moreover," he added, "bird feathers are quite heavy, so very large birds may have become too heavy."
Mayr and paleontologist David Rubilar of Chile's National Museum of Natural History analyzed the big bird's fossilized remains, which are 70 percent complete. The bird is described in the latest issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
The researchers think the birds soared the skies looking for food, such as fish and squid. Once prey was spotted, the birds would cruise across the surface with their lower jaws immersed in the water, grabbing the slippery prey securely with their beaks.
Bony-toothed birds were a very successful group, living during most of the Cenozoic period over a time span of 50-60 million years. They all became extinct approximately 2 million years ago at a time when the Panamanian isthmus between North and South America closed.
Our distant human ancestors may have even watched these boat-sized birds in action. Fossils suggest pelagornithids lived in North Africa during the Pliocene Era.
"If early humans, such as australopithecines or Homo erectus, lived in Morocco by that time and went to the sea, they would have seen these birds," Mayr said.
Mayr thinks it's possible predation by mammals coming over from North America could have wiped out the birds at their breeding grounds, or perhaps they couldn't tolerate resulting changes in sea currents.
Cecile Mourer-Chauvire, a paleornithologist at Claude Bernard University, told Discovery News that she wasn't surprised by the study, since it's been theorized for a while that pelagornithids "were really gigantic flying birds."
Stig Walsh, Senior Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at National Museums Scotland, also thinks it's "entirely possible the Chilean Pelagornis could have had a wingspan of 17 feet."
Walsh explained that the bird's bones had extremely thin walls, like those of pterosaur bones. "The lightness this must have given their bodies probably contributed to their ability to grow to such a large size," Walsh added.
A life-size reconstruction of Pelagornis chilensis will soon go on display at the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt, Germany.
© 2012 Discovery Channel

-After considering the size and the shape of this bird, I think it is entirely possible that we could have straggling survivors of  the type that are being described as "Pterosaurs" or "Pteranodons", especially around the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean and South America but I'm not ruling out ALSO the South Pacific, New Guinea and parts of Australia near the coasts. It would match some of the more peculiar "Thunderbird" reports quite well and it is also just about in the right size range. I am not going on record yet as saying that people actually ARE seeing such "Toothed" birds, but I would like to reserve the possibility while better reports could still be coming in. Below is an estimation of where some reports that could belong in this category might be placed Geographically:



Best Wishes, Dale D.

5 comments:

  1. I wanted to add that the map is to be taken as showing where "Ptersaurs are being reported" and NOT as places where the "Pterosaur" sightings have been stated to be toothed birds instead. The map is provisional only and may change when better research is done.

    Best Wishes, Dale D.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Needless to say, but if pterosaurs had airsacts that they could inflate to assist them in flying then the estimation that a flying creature could have a max wing span of 17 feet would be negated

    http://s8int.com/WordPress/2012/02/04/three-cryptozoological-mysteries-the-penn-state-dinosaur-that-was-the-ancient-chinese-rhinoceros-that-wasn%e2%80%99t-and-the-19th-century-pterosaur-displaying-previously-unknown-morphological-feat/

    ReplyDelete
  3. I would very much like to reprint that article. Unfortunately the "Flying Dragon" you refer to is actually a "Jenny Haniver" manufactured out of the body of a dead stingray. The African representation is probably showing something more genuine and the "Bird" might be standing on a Plesiosaur's head in that one-it is certainly not any one of the conventional Big Game animals from the region.The rest of the evidence holds up quite well including the Elasmotherium part, and I am inclined to call the two-horned Unicorn an Elasmotherium with an extra nose horn. It is in any case quite an interesting article and discussion would be welcome.

    Best Wishes, Dale D.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Owner says feel free to reprint with your comments
    s8intcom@comcast.net

    ReplyDelete
  5. Gratified, Will Do!

    ReplyDelete

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