TLS06E01 Rhamphorhynchus

Terrible Lizards

Series 6? That can’t be right. Surely this is 3 or 4 or something, 5 at the outside. Blimey. Anyway, we are back and we have new episodes though we are cheating already by starting with a pterosaur and talking about the greatly underappreciated Rhamphorhynchus. As the only vaguely well-known long-tailed pterosaur it is shown in the background of every Jurassic dinosaur painting to give scale the sauropods no matter how far inland or on the wrong continent or time it may be. It is though, as usual, much more interesting than people give it credit for and it’s very well studied and well understood so it’s a shame it doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Dave likes it so much he went on about the growth, tail, beak, wings and more until we’d recorded enough that we didn’t have a guest so just pterosaurs this week!

Links:

Blogpost about Dave’s paper on growth in Rhamphorhynchus: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2020/07/08/how-to-grow-your-dragon-pterosaur-onotgeny/

Blogpost about decaying pterosaurs: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2017/07/24/soft-tissues-and-pterosaur-taphonomy-but-not-as-you-might-expect/

Link to the paper on Rhamphorhynchus stomach contents and coprolite: https://peerj.com/articles/1191/