The soft tissue of
            <i>Jeholopterus</i>
            (Pterosauria, Anurognathidae, Batrachognathinae) and the structure of the pterosaur wing membrane

Kellner, Alexander W. A.; Wang, Xiaolin; Tischlinger, Helmut; Campos, Diógenes; Hone, David W. E.; Meng, Xiuxiang

doi:10.1098/rspb.2009.0846

Cited by 96 publications

(110 citation statements)

References 26 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

100

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Since the animals presumably had some control over the wing camber [3,22], the envelope curve around the results with the flexible membrane best shows the full range of performance. When compared with the rigid wing section results, the low-speed flight capability is extended and combined with a softer stall, which would have enhanced control during landing manoeuvres when low speed, high drag and high lift are required.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The membrane of the flexible model was made from latex rubber, reinforced in the proximodistal direction with thin cotton fibres to represent the anisotropic properties of the membrane conferred by internal reinforcing fibres [3,22]. The membrane elasticity was scaled to be equivalent to 2-mm-thick skin with the same properties as bat wings [23].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although we know from fossils with preserved soft tissues that the pterosaur wing membrane was thin (most likely of varying elasticity), with internal reinforcing fibres-perhaps surface fibres (pycnofibres) [3]-and possibly pneumatized in the regions closest to the wing bones [5], it remains difficult to determine the nature of the membrane attachment to the bony skeleton. It was probably either midway between the dorsal and ventral sides of the wing bones [6], as in bats [7], or attached entirely to their dorsal surfaces [8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Unlike their living functional counterparts, birds and bats, pterosaurs possessed a flexible, membranous wing that was supported by a single, super-elongate wing finger [1][2][3]. As far as is known, no other flying vertebrates have ever adopted this gross morphology and there are no direct analogues in mechanical aerodynamics, the closest being the mainsail of a sailboat [4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Flight in slow motion: aerodynamics of the pterosaur wing

Palmer

2010

Proc. R. Soc. B.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The flight of pterosaurs and the extreme sizes of some taxa have long perplexed evolutionary biologists. Past reconstructions of flight capability were handicapped by the available aerodynamic data, which was unrepresentative of possible pterosaur wing profiles. I report wind tunnel tests on a range of possible pterosaur wing sections and quantify the likely performance for the first time. These sections have substantially higher profile drag and maximum lift coefficients than those assumed before, suggesting that large pterosaurs were aerodynamically less efficient and could fly more slowly than previously estimated. In order to achieve higher efficiency, the wing bones must be faired, which implies extensive regions of pneumatized tissue. Whether faired or not, the pterosaur wings were adapted to low-speed flight, unsuited to marine style dynamic soaring but adapted for thermal/slope soaring and controlled, low-speed landing. Because their thin-walled bones were susceptible to impact damage, slow flight would have helped to avoid injury and may have contributed to their attaining much larger sizes than fossil or extant birds. The trade-off would have been an extreme vulnerability to strong or turbulent winds both in flight and on the ground, akin to modern-day paragliders.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Flight in slow motion: aerodynamics of the pterosaur wing

Palmer

2010

Proc. R. Soc. B.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Finally, it is worth pointing out that filamentous integumentary coverings have been reported in a variety of pterosaurs, flying reptiles which are close relatives of dinosaurs but outside of Dinosauria proper. These fossils, including specimens of Sordes pilosus (Sharov, 1970;Bakhurina and Unwin, 1995) and several specimens from the Yixian and Daohugou Formations (Lu, 2002;Wang et al, 2002;Ji and Yuan, 2002;Kellner et al, 2009;see Norell and Ellison, 2005) show incontrovertible evidence for such structures, but it is unclear whether these are homologous to bird feathers or even dinosaurian "protofeathers. "…”

Section: Feathers: a Dinosaur Innovation?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The origin and early radiation of dinosaurs

Brusatte

Nesbitt

Irmis

et al. 2010

Earth-Science Reviews

242

214

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Dinosaurs were remarkably successful during the Mesozoic and one subgroup, birds, remain an important component of modern ecosystems. Although the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous has been the subject of intense debate, comparatively little attention has been given to the origin and early evolution of dinosaurs during the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic, one of the most important evolutionary radiations in earth history. Our understanding of this keystone event has dramatically changed over the past 25 years, thanks to an influx of new fossil discoveries, reinterpretations of long-ignored specimens, and quantitative macroevolutionary analyses that synthesize anatomical and geological data. Here we provide an overview of the first 50 million years of dinosaur history, with a focus on the large-scale patterns that characterize the ascent of dinosaurs from a small, almost marginal group of reptiles in the Late Triassic to the preeminent terrestrial vertebrates of the Jurassic and Cretaceous. We provide both a biological and geological background for early dinosaur history. Dinosaurs are deeply nested among the archosaurian reptiles, diagnosed by only a small number of characters, and are subdivided into a number of major lineages. The first unequivocal dinosaurs are known from the late Carnian of South America, but the presence of their sister group in the Middle Triassic implies that dinosaurs possibly originated much earlier. The three major dinosaur lineages, theropods, sauropodomorphs, and ornithischians, are all known from the Triassic, when continents were joined into the supercontinent Pangaea and global climates were hot and arid. Although many researchers have long suggested that dinosaurs outcompeted other reptile groups during the Triassic, we argue that the ascent of dinosaurs was more of a matter of contingency and opportunism. Dinosaurs were overshadowed in most Late Triassic ecosystems by crocodile-line archosaurs and showed no signs of outcompeting their rivals. Instead, the rise of dinosaurs was a two-stage process, as dinosaurs expanded in taxonomic diversity, morphological disparity, and absolute faunal abundance only after the extinction of most crocodile-line reptiles and other groups.

show abstract

References

2012

Dinosaur Paleobiology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The soft tissue of Jeholopterus (Pterosauria, Anurognathidae, Batrachognathinae) and the structure of the pterosaur wing membrane

Cited by 96 publications

References 26 publications

Flight in slow motion: aerodynamics of the pterosaur wing

Flight in slow motion: aerodynamics of the pterosaur wing

The origin and early radiation of dinosaurs

References

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About