How is it that we discover bones of a large flying creature, and first thought is “it looks mammalian, like a flying possum!” And then “nah, that’s ridiculous. It was a flying reptile! Like a DRAGON!”
Large flying creature, and nobody thinks giant bird? Really?
We already have birds. Give us flying possums or dragons.
Apparently they were way more similar to bats than to birds.
Omg I would love if they had big possum energy.
You know, like not dick seagull hustle tactics.
I never thought about Mesozoic fauna having external ears. Birds don’t, so presumably their dinosaur ancestors didn’t. But maybe pterosaurs did? (Would we be able to tell by looking for muscle attachment points on their skulls?)
Imprint fossils preserve feathers and other soft tissues. No ears.
In German, we call bats “Fledermaus” (fluttering mouse) and this is the missing link between them and regular mouses. Who would have guessed that of all the peoples in the world, the Germans have been right all this time
My dog’s name is Die Fledermaus. He’s a black-and-tan dachshund.
We call him Maus for short. But he does look like a little bat dog.
It could work as a new Lemmy logo.
Pteroratyl
Removed by mod
wildly inaccurate animal illustrations is such a vibe
Look at samurai era illustrations of lions and leopards. The artists only had the skins to work off, so they used house cats for the faces. And they thought they were the same species, with lions being males and leopards being females.
Imagine how archeologists would draw an elephant or a camel if they only had bones to go from.
Boy had possums on the brain
