Pterosaurs are just some of the coolest extinct things yet discovered. The sheer thought of something the size of a giraffe standing up and taking off in the air is just insane. I really hope that we discover more about these amazing creatures and what could also be laying in wait to be discovered next…
@@LuisSierra42 lmfao reminds me of a Bill Engvall line "well I don't wanna meet the bird that can take a door off a jetliner. I thought they were extinct!"
How about a whole video on exactly how pterosaurs flew, including takeoff and landing. I understand it's likely they did a lean-forward and arm spring to achieve lift, similar to vampire bats (whose terrestrial gait is very pterosaur-like). Imagine seeing an Azhdarchid taking off that way. Wow.
@@DogansPCRiot it took me a minute to get that. I don't subscribe to Your Dinosaurs Are Wrong but the algorithms keep suggesting it. I'll check it out.
Ichnotaxa like trackways don't get enough appreciation in my opinion. Sure, they may not be as swag as the fossilized bones and eggs, but they reveal a lot we wouldn't otherwise know about the amazing creatures that we'll never see alive.
What a fantastic journey into paleontological history -- I love when this channel focuses not only on the ancient animals, but how we know what we know about them. Excellent as always !
In the last 10 years, the process of figuring out what coloration ancient and/or extinct species had from fossil records has really picked up steam in the scientific community, an exploration of this topic (past assumptions vs current assumptions) would be most excellent. Playing off of the episode Eons: When Dinosaurs Chilled in the Arctic, the coloration of feathers and skin specifically.
In one of their earliest videos around 4 years ago, they discussed coloration of dinosaurs. It's called "What Colors Were Dinosaurs?" That might answer some of your questions. I would definitely love to have a new video on this subject that would go more in-depth than the old one.
That's what I'm getting at, the increase in technology and understanding has expanded greatly in the last 4-5 years. Some very exciting finds just within the last couple of months.
Likely more similar in mechanics to a bat than an albatross. As in they rock back in a four point stance then launch in one go rather than running up to speed
Eh... the problem that birds like the albatross have is that they only have two points to apply force to get themselves into the air (Their legs), so they need that kind of run-up to get lift to their wings so that they can take advantage of those limbs too. With Pterosaurs, their wings were also able to be used for land-based locomotion, and the current best hypothesis for how larger species got in the air utilises a very different method to that of birds. Basically, they would launch themselves off of their back limbs first, using their 'hands' (There's probably a specific term for what a Pterosaur's front digits were called, but I don't know it, so hands it is) to support their full body weight in a 'rocking' motion, before applying force from their front limbs to get them the rest of the way up into the air, where their wings took over. I'm probably mis-explaining it, since it's been a while since I initially heard this idea. I think it was either Moth Light Media or possibly Eons themselves who did a video explaining it, so you can go check for that if you want.
Look for it, the current theory is that ptero's just "sat" in a certain posture, the launch position, tensed their muscles like an archer would do with his bow, and then letting go, they went off like the arrow flies. /watch?v=CRk_OV2cDkk
Albatrosses are pretty ungainly on land, but that's due to their extreme specialization for life on the open ocean, not because of their size. There are plenty of birds of comparable size that have no problem taking flight or getting around on land. I don't think we can assume pterosaurs had trouble getting airborne or were ungainly on land just because of their size.
Pterosaurs probably occupied all the same niches as birds and bats do today. There were probably "vulture" pterosaurs that sought out carcasses, fruit pterosaurs, small pterosaurs that fed on insects in the air, and some that spent most of their time fishing. It would be so interesting to have seen all that play out.
That does seem likely given the flexibility their body design provides. Heck, they may have occupied even more niches, as I could see them being great aerial hunters, but I could also see them spending most of their time on land and simply using their wings to travel to where food is. It's highly possible different Pterosaur species would have adapted to different lifestyles to occupy different niches.
Mark Witton, scientist who also does a lot of drawing of ptero's published a book recently (quess what title : ). He reckons the larger ptero's lived a bit like Marabou or Shoebilled Stork, both big birds that fly towards locations were much prey can be expected (like around flooding rivers plains, edges of burnt areas or location were many dino eggs hatched simultaneously (like todays turtle beaches)) to feed on fleeing small animals or young hatchlings. Seeing how large they could grow, this must have been a highly succesful strategy. Like our blue whale grows to about the largest size a sea dwelling beast can grow, the largest ptero's may have been grown to the ultimate size their body plan could do.
@@reuireuiop0 I always imagine the large pterosaurs hunting like ground hornbills, don't think the big boys depended on scavinging, but their enormous beakes they could kill big prey.
@@reuireuiop0 I could see that. If they could move at a decent speed on land, they may not have needed to master precision aerial strikes like a hawk or falcon. All they would need to do is move to where food is, which also means they could easily move on if food is scarce in a particular area. At first I thought their hollow bones would pose a weakness as they don't appear as though they could stand up well to a big predator (relatively speaking, as they are larger than almost all creatures around today), but then I realized that's another area where flight is a huge advantage. If a T-Rex or something showed up, they could just leave. That would mean leaving behind scavenged food, but again, they had the means to just go somewhere else to look for more.
I deeply appreciate your open recognition, at the conclusion of each episode, of the indigenous connection to fossils- through land, and tribal occupation. You are a delight, Eons!!!
I remember an activity we did in 7th grade science where the teacher asked us to draw a scientist. Predictably, everyone drew Einstein, or a chemist in a lab coat. Seeing the host of this show, I'm glad that kids today will think that this is what a scientist can look like.
I would love an episode about dinosaur behavior that makes them more real. Hearing about nesting, migration, and ways they move really bring the skeleton in my mind to life. I know it’s vague but just a thought 😅
@@jacobkudrowich Eh, not exactly true. There's a great deal we don't know about their behavior, but there are pieces we know, and other pieces we can speculate with a fair amount of support for our opinions. It's not like the only things we've ever been able to conclude about them is how they're shaped... both because trace fossils tell us some things about behavior and also because some details of body fossils can tell us what the animal can do best. Usually, what it does best is also what it does often; that's how it survives.
@@kyptos2252 No, they're not, but there's nothing in this comment that suggests they are. A lot of people post requests for future episodes in the comments on the current one... the request and the topic of the current episode don't necessarily have anything to do with each other. I might just as easily post a comment here asking for a future episode about Devonian tetrapods.
I don't know why this episode is very charming. Maybe the thought of a dinosaur that 'learn to walk properly' from the accumulation of data made it so. Maybe because it also shows how any branch of science, like our knowledgeable host Michelle says, painstakingly "corrects itself" over time.
michelle started rough and i think she had a hard time getting used to being a host, and finding her voice. i think she was a delight in this episode. it was very enjoyable to see her. keep up the great work!
Agreed, she was a bit stiff coming in, but that should be expected. It's cool to see her slowly come into it haha. Hope to see her more! Love the content!
@@MrHelleborus imo people should remember this isn’t big-business television, it’s a PBS RU-vid. These people are non-actors who have to learn on the job. Michelle will keep growing into the role like Blake and Kallie had to.
I think the script writing and editing got better. This was a great episode. All new "TV" hosts have to find their feet but I think she's basically already there.
I love this host's delivery - the pace, intonation, and enunciation are very engaging and yet professional. I'm delighted everytime she hosts a new episode.
Large pterosaur bottoms? 🎵I like big butts yet I still can fly You other fliers can't deny When those wings swoop in with an itty bitty face, and a round one in it's wake Fossils get sprung 🎵
In comparison to birds they definitely are. Large pterosaurs had very heavily developed forelimbs, as they used them for both launch and flight, whereas bids use their hindlimbs for launching
When you think about the sheer diversity of life that exists on present-day Earth and then about how rare fossils are and how most environments are completely unconducive to fossilization, you realize the insane degree to which paleontologists must be just scratching the surface.
I'm so grateful we live in a time where we can sort of see into how the past once was. It's fascinating. We are the torch barers of even this previously existed art of life.
I love your topics! If I could wish for anything, I’d love a longer episode. You really give lots of information and make it entertaining as well. Thanks for all you do.
I don't comment often. Sorry, that's my bad! I just wanted to reassure the whole Eons team: hey, you're all doing amazing work and thank you so much for creating such interesting, informative videos which entertain while they educate. And I will keep all of those terrible, terrible jokes in my list of "Bad jokes and puns that will help me identify other nerdy sciency geeks".
I always love these videos. I have to say, I absolutely ADORE that dress! I don't usually like to comment on clothing or appearance, but that dress is amazing. Does anyone know what brand it is or where it may have been purchased?
To me it looked like it was dirty and stained. In in the middle it looks like a grease stain, and on the right middle some red stuff. Is that the pattern and I am just seeing it wrong?
An interesting video. I'd also like to congratulate the presenter for having progressed so far. A confident and well spoken presentation. As a retired teacher, I know how difficult it is to develop a relaxed approach in this kind of situation.
4:45 Okay this is really fascinating.. Today I learnt that trace fossils are assigned separate scientific names of their own, this is why I love this channel.
I think I would like to see a collab between PBS Eons and Tasting History with Max Miller when it comes to food stuff most of us like to eat. One tells how the plant/animal came to be, and other tells how we humans found it and consumed it (along with some old recipe based on the said ingredient)! I can easily imagine an episode of this on some citrus fruit or some herb used for seasoning.
To be fair the pterosaur is still a creature swimming through a fluid so his interpretation that they were aquatic creatures still kind of makes a bit of sense. We see animals with huge fins that swim through the water which is a fluid and air is a fluid also. So hey I'll give him a good guess.
Very, VERY cool video. Wanted to observe that, though pterosaurs are emphatically not birds - there are some birds whose behavior MAY shed light on potential behaviors for those long gone creatures. Albatross! For one thing, they're among the biggest flying critters around today; for another they do spend a LOT of time on the wing - but they also spend time on the ground for nesting. Now, I obviously don't know if we have ways to test out this idea, but imagining wee baby pterosaurs waiting at a nest, the way a baby albatross will do, makes my brain happy!
Oh so they trundled along like giraffes with huge, long, fuzzy, uncanny necks that ended in massive spears that could swallow a man whole or at least turn him into a kebab. Thanks, I hate it, the past is a nightmare.
Another great Video I never learned this much about the ancient past In school Or maybe I just didn't pay attention Thank you for all your great videos
This is already such a cool topic but I'm so excited to learn that this discovery was made in my state, Arizona! Birds and bats are such fascinating animals today, like every time I see a bird hopping around on the ground I can't help but stop to watch the motions of their legs, so I'm glad that there's so much scientific interest in pterosaurs too. Obviously any animal that flies has our attention since it's something humans can't do, but they're just so different from anything we know of existing today that it's so fun to learn about. Wonderful video 💕
Watching an interesting video about giant, winged bird-like creatures when you are scared of birds and should be going to bed very soon. Way to go... Hope I won't get any nightmares.
It's something I realised watching this video, but is true for basically everyone presenting and it's that we have a full body shot of the speaker a lot, but they don't seem to be allowed to move their legs at all and I just thought it was funny contrasting how all the presenters are generally lively and active with their hands yet frozen in place and stiff with their legs :D
A happy holidays to you may it be peaceful safe. I have serious problems with the idea that the largest pterosaurs ( three Quetzalcoatlus species as an example ) were not in danger every time they landed on the ground, or in the waters. They may have had massive beaks to use as weapons but their bones were hollow and I can imagine a pack of small raptors, a crocodilian or mid-size carnivores could run them down before reaching flight in a run. Most especially after gorging on food. Food is heavy and adds to weight. I remember that some vultures once gorged can't fly until some digestion has occurred. They become quite vulnerable. I can only think that the same physics must apply to these massively large flying Quetzalcoatlus. Any light you can shed on this, Eon group. 🦊✨✨✨👍
They could inflict serious damage to most predators with their beaks and wings though. For most predators it likely just wasn't worth the risk of injury. I heard they also only specialised in areas without large terrestrial predators to which would be a big part.
How absolutely wonderful! Of course, when people first started analysing these animals they were seeing the fossils of, the work of reconstructing into bizarre animals bones that could not be associated with current fauna must have been a "most exquisite torture" for any enthusiast, until more and more palaeontologists had entered the field and left their mark; to the point that now, you can talk about them with such certainty and can classify them with accuracy (always with the understanding that later knowledge may force re-evaluations) and predict their behaviours. It is amazing to hear of how one pterosaur landed from a flight, based on footprints that have survived; it is beyond comprehension that something so etherial as that can be preserved! Or that they were comfortable walking based on comparisons to birds... Animal size comparisons next to the presenter are just great and is much more striking than: "oh, it's 9m long and 3,5m to the shoulder". You and your colleagues bring them all to life more and more realistically (within the limits of the fossils we have) with all the accumulated knowledge of these few hundred years brought to bear on each animal, even adding significant anatomical details to enrich our understanding of their lives. What great programmes! Thank you.
Amazing specimen! What I’m most curious about is their navigation system. Like how can they travel around the world and then home in back to their nesting ground? 🧐
Probably most didn't travel "around the world". Most probably didn't leave the neighborhood. Of course a flying creature might have a big neighborhood.
Quetzal was found on the entire Globe. but that doesn't confirm far traveling as all Continents were still reasonebly close to one another thx to Alaska
@@seretith3513 actually all continents being close together has more to do with the Atlantic ocean not yet existing. Also, having world-wide distribution doesn't necessarily mean individuals were world travellers. Mountain lions (pumas) range from canada to south america, but individuals don't travel that far. (Yes they don't fly, but still).
@@keithfaulkner6319... What did i just say We also talk about Quetzalcoatlus By that Time Tyrannosaurspecies were Migrating frequently between Asia and Amerika through Alaska
You have improved so much sense the first time I watch a video with u, I gave u critic cause it felt so script and stiff! you way better now keep this up and now I can enjoy watching videos with u! this was a interested and fun video cheers! and as I said your way better now then when u first did make a video
By far my favorite dinosaurs. Some of these guys were as tall as giraffes. Imagine putting your baby to bed at night and while you're sound asleep a Quetzalcoatlus lands on the ground outside, smashes through your baby's second story window with its 5 foot long beak, and then like a pelican eating a fish it swallows your newborn whole while you can only helplessly watch on the baby monitor. If they lived in modern times they would be so terrifying.
They would be very terrifying but also with our modern weaponry more people at homes would have access to guns and with all our bombs/ machine guns and large missiles we'd get rid of that problem pretty easily. What would be more tricky is if they started to purposely stay in small cities or villages because they know we wouldn't attack, then again there are tranquilizer darts and we could enhance the formula pretty quickly. If it's enough to kill an elephant at a certain dose we could definitely down one of them with a higher dose and exterminate them that way. Ofc I think we as humans would make things more complicated because animal rights activists would say to keep some of them alive 💀 and I say hell no to that because we are not doing another Jurassic park
@@AndrewTBP wait are archosuars and dinosaurs like related in the sense that foxes are to wolves? They are both canines but different variations? Eh something like that?
Pterosaurs, prehistoric crocodilian creatures, and gorgonopsids freak me out! I'm glad I won't have to see any of them IRL, unless of course some scientists somewhere goes all Jurassic Park on us. 😅
i'm honestly semi-convinced there probably actually was a flightless pterosaur or two at some point given how scarily competent they were at hunting on the ground. maybe they just haven't preserved or we haven't found fossils of them yet
If I had to guess, such a thing would likely only occur on isolated islands, since otherwise the local dinosaur population would outcompete any flightless or flying-less pterosaur due to their anatomical head-start in the ground-dwelling department. That said, there were a lot of islands around in the Cretaceous due to high sea levels, especially in Europe, so its possible, although it appears that they weren't quite isolated enough for that kind of insular weirdness to occur, beyond species like Hatzegopteryx taking advantage of the lack of predators, for instance. Side note, it'd be interesting to hear about fossil records from places like Hawai'i, as in current volcanic islands, or areas that were once volcanic islands (Like seamounts), since nowadays they tend to be hotspots for weird evolutionary paths, so that might be something for Eons to look into, maybe.
Hmm... Well, flightlessness evolved many times across a range of bird taxa, so I don't see any problem thinking there may have been a flightless pterosaur or two
@@jamesredmond7001 you do realize countless bird taxa evolved to be flightless or hardly able to fly aside from in extreme danger for short bursts and they were not isolated to an island. Actually most flightless or bad flying, birds directly live around and compete with animals in the same niche as well as mammalian predators etc. and have survived and evolved to do so while catching up to these already more well equipped land dwellers. It’s almost a guarantee similar evolution took place among pteranodons but we won’t be able to say for sure u til we find evidence
They not only walked, they galloped! The Quad Launch is how they are thought to lift off, using all 4 of their limbs to propel themselves into the air after picking up speed!
I agree that it's hard to determine strict behavioral niches as there are no complete ecological analogues today, maybe generally but not exact. It would be nice to have a video about computer aided and other simulation techniques to figure out dinosaur motions and habits. Kudos to Eons.
That first photo is near the head of Humbug Canyon, at the Jump (a historic cattle trail), not at the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry (now Jurassic National Monument), which is about 10 miles away.
