How Pterosaurs Got Their Wings

[@MrJeffcoley1]

Hard to call a group of animals that thrives for over 100 million years anything but an evolutionary success story

[@planescaped]

If not for that meteor humans may never have had a chance to evolve, or at the very least, would have evolved very differently. We might've ended up with the brain capacity of a 3 year old and still living in trees.

[@alioramus1637]

Actually even longer than that from between 228 millions years to 66 millions years

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

We humans have yet to show that we can survive in the long run.

[@johanrunfeldt7174]

Well, the first diapsids (the group that we mammals are part of) turned up before the first archosaurs, so who is more successful? And another thing, the really long lived families and species, tend to be exotherms and less specialized to a certain environment or food. They also tend to be less intelligent.

[@Minish4rk360]

@@johanrunfeldt7174 you mean synapsids

[@surabhi_kumari]

3:20 am I think I should log off now. PBS Eons: How pterosaurs got their wings? This is important, I swear this is the last one.

[@uniquepickles6804]

You really should go to bed, do yourself a favor. Also, go drink some water.

[@JohnJohansen2]

Made me remember the: - Aren't you coming to bed? - Can't. This is important! - What's important? - Someone is wrong on the internet!

[@lestatangel]

Ya'll are nuts. 😎

[@fadedtwilght]

1:24am 😂

[@NexuJin]

05:24 After many "last one"

[@NemoNamikaze]

Pterosaurs: *experience ecological pressure from avian dinosaurs* Pterosaurs: BIRD UP

[@SumoPanda12345]

BIRD UP

[@shgds]

BIRD UP

[@dirkpohlmann2657]

BIRD UP

[@sevcon2]

UP UP, it's the dinosaur world

[@OttoGraff-fu8pj]

DIAPSID UP

[@sgtfox1667]

PBS chose their team well, I like their hosts equally for different reasons

[@mrb7094]

Moi aussi

[@MossyMozart]

@@mrb7094 - Et moi.

[@patrickmccurry1563]

Foggy? Not "the evolution of pterosaurs is still... up in the air"?

[@nevercallmebyname]

no it's very much not in the air. In fact it's mostly underground. :P

[@spindash64]

SheTheTDE In which case saying it’s foggy makes sense: in those conditions, most flights are grounded

[@clydebalcom8252]

Funny. I like that.

[@AifDaimon]

@@spindash64 in the case of Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, though, it's hazy AF

[@chanbricks4461]

@@AifDaimon For reals. Above 200? That's crazy! But I don't mind , free holidays for us students

[@CJCroen1393]

I'm a simple man. I see pterosaurs, I click. Also, can we talk about how cute Scleromochlus is? Tiny little jerboa reptile that cuddles with its family at night to keep warm! X3

[@usagi2934]

And then dies when the sand crumbles down and traps them

[@mixiekins]

I just want to know what was so biologically special that allowed them to get so dang huge if birds haven't been able to get anywhere near as big. What's holding birds back?

[@dan240393]

@@mixiekins Feathers, i would imagine. In order to get that big your feathers would have to be enormous (you're looking at 4-6 meter feathers on the outer wing) and you'd have to have a metric shitload of them to cover all that surface. I doubt you could get feathers that big that were both sturdy enough, light enough and well anchored enough to be usable for flight; not to mention the caloric and nutritional requirements of making such complex structures so large. By comparison a pterosaur just has skin and a couple of long fingers. Much simpler, much lighter and much less complex.

[@starlitshadows]

@@mixiekins Feathers is one potential factor but in general availability of food and energy expenditure are typical factors in size of animals as well. Argentavis was 23 ft. bird that is believed to have flown very similarly to pterosaurs. So there have been some pretty large birds as well.

[@katyungodly]

Scleromochlus sleeping: UωU When dune collapses: OωO;

[@not_today_satan-wu2ib]

I love this guy's voice honestly amazing

[@hj6507]

Same!!!! Actually really love all the hosts for this series, but this guy's voice just does it for me LMAO

[@not_today_satan-wu2ib]

@@hj6507 I wish he was my biology teacher instead of whatever monstrosity we have in class

[@yjk5737]

@@not_today_satan-wu2ib Does his accent sound exotic to your British ears? The rough, unpolished plain speech of your unruly Colonies.

[@BarnsOfChris]

​@@yjk5737 No need to be bloody rude Sir

[@XxToXicVaGxX]

@@hj6507 Idk. The girl kind of makes my ears bleed. But other than her, yasss we need more silky voiced bois to get on the pbs eons train pronto

[@FabianoSeixasFernandes]

Bats and pterosaurs pose the same problem, as they show up fully developed in the fossil record, and fossilize badly. Interesting. Thanks, Eon =D

[@kimurico1]

Agreed. But I'd think pterosaurs are "worse". I mean, it's """"easier"""" to picture a predecessor of a bat getting webby fingers, and the having all it's fingers grow a little and so on, than to picture a pre-pterosaur growing it's fifth finger? Let's hope we find enough intermediate genera between older archosaurs and pterosaurs in the future

[@ejrelatorre4254]

What if bats became larger and larger like the pterosaurs

[@michaelbuckers]

@@ejrelatorre4254 Fruit bats are pretty big.

[@Koraxus]

@@michaelbuckers yet interestingly are one of the less specialized looking bats. They mostly look like their name suggest, a flying fox, resembling greatly other mammals. they also lack echolocation, high pitched sonars and other stuff associated with bats

[@ejrelatorre4254]

@@michaelbuckers yeah, what if they're as big as a bear!

[@Darthbelal]

I'm just bummed we don't have ANY pterosaurs flying around nowadays. Dammit, we've missed out on all kinds of wonderful animals and plants......

[@eljanrimsa5843]

pffft, pterosaurs are medieval. We have dinosaurs flying around

[@Mr.LaughingDuck]

Ate some dinosaurs for lunch at KFC

[@leemaples1806]

we have millions of known living things on earth today, maybe more bio diversity than any time on earth. but we know too that about 97% of all known life ever, is now extinct. so ya, we missed out on a bunch but at least we can see what it was we missed out on. :-)

[@napatora]

eh we have some pretty cool stuff still around. i think we're lucky we get to know about what came before and what we have now

[@globin3477]

To be fair, if we did have pterosaurs, they may have re-evolved forms as big as the Asdarchids, and if that were the case, they would be able to swallow an adult human whole.

[@good7bad13]

5:17 I laughed so hard because I did not expect the end screen. XD

[@AifDaimon]

Same here

[@rashadaakter9778]

Yeah.. I do too

[@NoobPTFO]

So you’re telling me there were cute rabbit desert dinos?

[@veggieboyultimate]

Noob PTFO probably yeah

[@GotPotatoes24]

Not just cute rabbit desert dinos, but cute rabbit desert dinos that CUDDLED

[@CJCroen1393]

Some of them (like Scleromochlus) weren't dinosaurs but yeah, they existed and they were cute!

[@OiishiNoAnko]

Cute pterodactyl pikachus

[@TerrariaGolem]

@@OiishiNoAnko acheops

[@levinikee501]

What I love about this episode is they took every opportunity to put the Quetzalcoatlus beside the host, to really drive home how MASSIVE they were! Absolute unit!

[@raineberry7627]

Oh goodness. I had never seen Anurognathus before. It looks like a little flying potato monster, too cute!

[@AlexTheGamePlan]

There's been an update with that early pterosaur. The one that had long legs. I can't find the paper, but it says that that early pterosaur would have in fact walked on the flats of its feet. It would have been on all fours. to top it off it probably would have hopped more like a frog.

[@sohopedeco]

When are you gonna make a video on the split between monotremes, marsupials and placentals???

[@Neenerella333]

Ooh. Cool idea. I was always curious what the advantage was to either.

[@julesmasseffectmusic]

2 monotremes both weird in other ways. Echidnas have no stomach. Platypus is venomous biofluescent and long lived considering. Marsupials are very niche and dumb.

[@carissstewart3211]

"Pterosaurs probably didn't go from no-wings to full-wings in a single evolutionary leap." It worked for some of the X-Men.

[@igorchistyakov8876]

So you are implying some laser shooting, steel-covered psychic dinos as well? Nice.

[@Noname-67]

@@igorchistyakov8876 how do you know that dinosaur can't shoot laser from the eyes

[@igorchistyakov8876]

@@Noname-67 exactly!

[@orangeyellow9695]

My charizard want to opine

[@OniDemo]

@@igorchistyakov8876 laser raptors are real

[@bombour2870]

This is one of my favourite channels. I grew to love PBS watching alone in the wilderness as a kid. Thank you PBS.

[@cltottles9512]

Love you guys to do a video on Yi Qi a dinosaur closely related to birds but with wings like a pterosaur. Love idiosyncratic things like that

[@jkromes20]

i googled that and holy crap that thing looks like a dragon lol

[@scaper8]

From the sounds of it, the entire Scansoriopterygidae family is definitely worth a video: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scansoriopterygidae

[@legendarypussydestroyer6943]

*Yee* Qi

[@Dinoman972]

Technically, its wings weren't really like those of pterosaurs. The membranes of pterosaurs were held by a single long finger, with the others protruding forward and forming a foot. _Yi qi_ , on the other hand, had all of its fingers supporting the membranes (except maybe the first finger, not sure about that one), being less like that of a pterosaur and more like that of a bat. Just saying.

[@gyozakeynsianism]

Cool!

[@colehalford1893]

“Episode done, goodbye everybody!” I 🤣 Extremely Hard! 👍 Thanks PBS

[@hoidthings5728]

Other periods: big and scary dinos, mammals and birds Triassic: sick jumping lizards that eventually will fly in the next update (ETA: maybe later)

[@BlastTheBat]

This sounds like something I would hear from TierZoo. Or am I late in pointing that out?

[@Pindakassie]

For a channel usually talking about change and evolution, I must say I really appreciate the subtle burst of energy and playful ways of telling the tale. Not every change in behaviour is positive for an organism, but it sure does for your channel. I salute you.

[@jarradpearman]

correction for the video, Pterosaur bones are really strong, evn though they are thin, how the bones are layered and the struts inside make them incredibly strong which is how some got really big. sincerely Jarrad BSC Palaeontology, university of portsmouth

[@sterkar99]

Did you really have to do that on the end?

[@XxToXicVaGxX]

I thought that they had to be more hollow to be able to fly? I mean sure they could have a good structure or orientation to help, but are they really strong as far as bones go? Like if I ripped a mammal's femur out that is similarly sized to the pterosaur, and smashed it against the femur of the pterosaur, which would break? I have a sneaking suspicion that this flying reptile's bone is getting destroyed. Correct me if I'm wrong

[@thearmyofiron]

@@sterkar99 that is to add more credibility to the comment.

[@nmarbletoe8210]

@@XxToXicVaGxX A mammal bone will be stronger by size, but a bird bone will be stronger by weight.

[@technewseveryweek8332]

@@sterkar99 Would you believe the person otherwise?

[@m_disulphide]

it’s so sad learning about all the beauty that isn’t around anymore RIP pterosaurs

[@jjhggdcqz]

Actually there was a cat-sized Azhdarchid Pterosaur living on what is now Hornby Island at the end of the Cretaceous.

[@rattila5858]

Local gerbil turn into a giant flying monster.

[@Grieche-i8y]

I don't think they jumped or fell. I think they were pushed.

[@EngelSpiel]

It was an inside job!

[@hblaub]

yeah dinosaurs invented bullying and mobbing

[@duskadown6751]

pushed by evolutionary peer pressure lol

[@pluspiping]

B O U N C E D

[@BioniclesaurKing4t2]

How about a video addressing how the dinosaurs' extinction used to be dated 65 mya, but is now apparently 66 mya, with how the estimate was determined and why it changed.

[@evelynsnyder5866]

this! I suspect better carbon dating or other kinds of dating but eh.

[@CorwynGC]

We rolled over a million year boundary...

[@canadian9628]

@@evelynsnyder5866 carbon dating only works for things around 50'000 years old

[@HisMajestyWalrus]

It was merely a geological recalibration of the previously calculated end of the Cretaceous period.

[@raijinoflimgrave8708]

@@canadian9628 but radiometric dating can be used on other elements with a much longer half life

[@pablolongobardi7240]

Pterosaurs ancestors developed a complex society and then started a spartan like eugenics program, where the ones that were too light were thrown of a cliff (weight was seen as a symbol of power back then). However, those mutated with membranes managed to survive

[@jacobv3396]

I've loved pterosaurs since I was a child! Thanks for posting this!

[@amiebrooks1458]

Eons is one of my favourite channels, I'm always fascinated with every new video. The amount of knowledge and research that must go into them amazes me

[@lilsoggins]

when i was little my parents took my to a museum that had a life-sized sculpture of queztalcoatalus. i was so amazed by it that i kept running back to it every ten minutes or so to stare up at it.

[@anna_in_aotearoa3166]

People often comment that they're sad we missed out on living with dinosaurs etc, but I must say the idea of an 11-metre-wingspan flying predator hanging about is something I'm rather glad to have missed IRL...? 😳 Fascinating, but from a safe distance of millions of years!!

[@YIIMM]

Cool, I was wondering about this just the other day.

[@qweezi4426]

Same

[@ekinteko]

It probably was the case that small pterosaurs were slower and weaker than their early bird competitors, losing out to food sources and becoming prey to many other animals including larger pterosaurs. So they probably were out-competed and died out, leaving their large pterosaur cousins to push their lineage. And practically all large herbivores and carnivores were snuffed out soon after with the dinosaurs, pterosaurs, large birds, and sea creatures. On the bounce-back, it would've been the animals that were adapted better for the small world, like mammals, small birds, small fish, which were able to recover fastest and fill the niche left from the loss of large creatures. In other words, the remaining dinosaurs and reptiles couldn't compete against the new birds and mammals and many went extinct. Although I wonder what happened with the insects and arachnids during this period.

[@grubbybum3614]

I had an acid trip when I had the vision about flying dinosaurs, whichever is the best scientific method btw - they were running creatures and giant swarms of insects were the only food around. Those that could jump highest won. And eventually they flew in the air.

[@ArmchairDeity]

I love EONS - makes Weds one of my fave days of the week!

[@debsy101games]

Last time I was this early, Earth was still in the Hadean Eon

[@lestatangel]

Hayley - 😎

[@TheInselaffen]

I love Noel Fielding's early characters.

[@debsy101games]

Organon thanks, so do I

[@cholulahotsauce6166]

😎

[@quackquack7673]

Tala Habern hate these type of guys

[@veggieboyultimate]

Finally a video that talks about the pterosaurs origins. I know this isn't approved but still. Also I have to ask, why did the pterosaurs wait till the birds appear to diversify? Wouldn’t they have diversified much earlier? Maybe they did but since they don’t fossilize well we don’t have their fossils to prove this.

[@dinosaurusrex1482]

@Albert Ross what are you talking about?

[@thefunklenbgamerextraordin6144]

My assumption would be that once birds began competing for the same food source as the pterosaurs, the pterosaurs felt more pressure to take advantage of other food sources causing them to adapt to catching different prey and diversify from there.

[@BonaparteBardithion]

There probably was some diversity earlier, but they didn't have a massive number of different types because there weren't any pressures to fill other niches in the food web. Why get bigger and hunt dinos when staying small and hunting bugs has worked for so long? When birds started competing for bugs one of the two groups had to adapt to the larger sized remaining food sources. It seems weird, but consider how many larger birds we have vs larger bats. Bats have clearly taken up the tiny bug eater niche while the birds were pressured to adapt to all sorts of diets. Even if you consider that bats or mostly nocturnal (probably because of smaller birds), the average diet of nocturnal birds doesn't overlap much with the diet of bats. And also consider the average size of extant rodent species. Their main competition at that size is other rodents, so they don't need to get any bigger than a small dog (capybara) despite there being several omnivorous rodent species that could become dog-sized predators. In their case competition from larger species favors staying small.

[@BonaparteBardithion]

@Albert Ross What's more applicable? Watch sports and entertainment? Write fiction? Listen to music? There are a million things we do that enrich but don't actually improve our lives. Meanwhile evolutionary science can teach us more about ourselves as a species, which can have medical benefits. It can also teach us about how other species are related, how they might get sick, how habitats can change and populations migrate, how they and we compete for resources. Patterns in the fossil record are a long-term forcast of what humans may go through under similar pressures. . Humans don't live in a bubble. We're part of a web of species and we will die as one if we ignore that. This kind of stuff might not help you directly, but it's still as important as most of the things we do in the here-and-now.

[@hv9988]

​@Albert Ross O.o if you don't think this stuff is worth while - why are you here watching these videos? Also you're wrong. By studying the genome and fossil record of living and past organisms,as well as other aspects of paleontology we can > Experiment and learn about genome, diseases, anatomy, and evolution > Ecological cause an effect relationships (similarly: biological cause and effect relationships among other cause and effect relationships). > We can develop models which help us become more precise in our predictive abilities on what will be happening in the future to our ice shelves, our climate, etc > We can use those modes to analyze the effect on agriculture, global economies (if ocean currents change it can add time to trade, global warming makes some farmland unusable while freeing up farmland to the north) > People who are just _interested_ in the field also develop strong critical thinking skills, gain a better understanding of their surroundings etc. It's a great field that is interesting on its own, and helpful to our understanding and ability to help ourselves in conjunction with other sciences.

[@AhilliaJasmine]

Hello from Athens, Greece ! Your video is fantastic ! I am a student (14 years old) and I would like to propose that pterosaurs maybe were living into the water and as they were swimming, with the pass of time, they created their feathers. My opinion is based on some features that I have seen into the sea. For example, frog has created its webs by swimming. With the shape of its feet, it can live both on land and in water. Probably would be similar the development of the pterosaurs. Thank you again for all your videos !!! Achillia.

[@beth2996]

So, I just inject my pinkie bone with steroids.

[@rimmipeepsicles1870]

And then attach skin from there to your legs.....

[@paleozoey]

Beth Wendt your ring finger actually, cut off the pinkie altogether

[@mastermindcow6210]

Keep your hands set sideways, pointing outwards.

[@jabby6709]

@@paleozoey * glances over at a kitchen knife * _time to make pterosaurs real again_

[@jaimie00]

This is my favorite channel on KZbin, and has been since it began. I can't throw money at you, so I just want to say thanks. You all do a great job.

[@joevuch7981]

www.patreon.com/eons

[@joschuaknuppe5849]

Ah well, the reason for the diversification of pterosaurs through the rise of birds stands on rather... weak wing fingers, sure they evolution of birds and derived pterosaurs correlates with the diversification of pterosaurs, but we don't know for sure if this triggered this. It also have been environmental changes (climate, flora, prey), certain new key adaptations arising on their own thanks to isolated populations or something nobody has come with yet. A lot happened during the end of the Jurassic. Singling out one reason isn't the best way to go ;)

[@eljanrimsa5843]

But the fact that there were no small pterosaurs left in the late Cretaceous, is a strong argument that they had been out-competed or eaten by the birds in the lower weight classes.

[@joschuaknuppe5849]

Again, we don't really know that, until two years ago we thought that all pterosaurs that survived until the end of the Cretaceous were midsized to giant azhdarchids and maybe nyctosaurs, now we know for certain that nyctosaurs survived until the end, were pretty diverse and had a huge size spectrum. One species was just one meter in wingspan, same with azhdarchids were we have a unnamed species that only reached 1 meter in wingspan. Also a relative of Pteranodon survived until the End. Problem with pterosaurs is that they have very fragile bones and preserve rarely, that means that without fitting localities that preserve these specimens you never have a full view of the pterosaur diversity at any given point. Birds have maybe outlived pterosaurs, but we have no indication that they outcompeted them.

[@joschuaknuppe5849]

Look up Hell Creek Pteranodontian, Hornby Azhdarchid and Alcione. While we sure see no hummingbird pterosaurs in the fossil record that doesn't mean that they weren't there and even if they never existed it doesn't mean that pterosaurs weren't successful what the fossil record shows is that most bird and pterosaur niches not really overlapped, we have for example very few marine birds but on the other hand there is next to no indication that pterosaurs went after seeds like many birds did.

[@Dragrath1]

@@eljanrimsa5843 One thing to consider is that pterosaurs seem to have been born able to fly due to possessing adult wing aspect ratios before they hatched and there is some evidence to suggest they grew more slowly without the rapid growth period seen in dinosaurs so a large giant would have to start out small and scale up. Furthermore there is evidence that pterosaurs and birds didn't really overlap that much in terms of occupied niches with birds only expanding out into a wider array of niches formerly occupied by pterosaurs after the mass extinction event. More recently we have found that pterosaurs were still quite diverse up until the end of the Cretaceous with much to the observed decline being the result of sampling bias in groups with low fossilization chances largely due to the very short timescale of the extinction. And even if they had occupied bird niches it probably wouldn't have helped them much considering that very few birds made it through the extinction themselves all of which seemed to be small ground nesting birds from the far southern hemisphere or were amphibious ground nesting species also from the southern hemisphere all of which were dietary generalists that fed off food sources that would have remained available in the aftermath of the extinction such as seeds, ferns(the first group of plants to recover due to their adaptations for low light environments) or rotting plant matter in freshwater or brackish waters respectively. Birds barely made it just like mammals barely made it and in both cases the ability to digest plant material probably was critical in their survival which was a trait pterosaurs never really adapted to the closest equivalent being marine filter feeders.

[@zweispurmopped]

If the ancestors of Pterosaurs were desert dwellers, could it be that their extra skin originally developed as heating for early desert mornings? They probably still were cold blooded like their prey, and we know that deserts get very cold very fast at night. A predator that heats up half an hour earlier than its prey would have a good advantage in mobility over its prey in early hours of the days, so such a heat collecting trait would very likely be selected for. A hunter using hopping as fast mode of of moving would benefit from such sun heat collectors in their secondary use as aerodynamically effective surface. From there, the selection for bigger surfaces and more muscle to use them is no far stretch anymore.

[@chaerodactyl]

does anyone else ever get, like, profoundly sad that they'll never get to see a real Quetzalcoatlus? somewhat but not entirely bc they would want to befriend one and live out their childhood dragonrider fantasy?

[@geraldcarty6465]

Always a treat to get a new Eons upload. Keep it up!

[@peppitachips1764]

I wanna know more about the birds of that time nobody ever talks about them

[@robinsonray6766]

they already made that video.

[@peppitachips1764]

Robinson Ray link please!?

[@mogyesz9]

@@robinsonray6766 thank you

[@pingosimon]

Editor: bringing in the end card in middle of the episode to really hit that joke 👌 Great episode!

[@awesomelyshorticles]

I want the colossal azdarchids back. Who do i talk to about that? I want to speak to a manager!

[@dumoulin11]

I'm with you on that one!

[@patrickmccurry1563]

Meat eating flying monstrosities the size of giraffes sounds like a great way to kill a lot of people before they're rendered extinct again for our own safety.

[@cintronproductions9430]

@@patrickmccurry1563 Yeah, those things would be a major danger to society, especially Hatzegopteryx, a colossal, jacked up predator that ate small sauropods. T. Rex is lucky Hatz didn't live alongside it, and we're lucky, too.

[@absalomdraconis]

@@patrickmccurry1563 : They would be a nuisance, but from everything I've heard they probably would be more of a threat to small dogs, turtles, and similar things. It's doubtful that they could have handled the weight of your average middle schooler, and maybe elementary schooler.

[@awesomelyshorticles]

@Matthew Mcgee Ben G Thomas has a great 4 part series on azdarchids on his channel, heres the first one. kzbin.info/www/bejne/mpSQnnWCntada6s I dont remember which video in which he adresses that proposed lifestyle tho, or what conclusion he drew.

[@tekannon7803]

Thanks for a very enlightening videocast. I believe the pterosaurs developed the ability to fly in their quest for food that needed them to be airborne to catch it. It must have been something that allowed them to jump from cliffs or tree to tree. Eventually, they conquered flight by developing enough skin and that expanded their food gathering ability to go for larger animals, which in turn allowed them evolve into the huge reptiles they became, as they could eat larger and larger prey. Flight was a bi-product of getting enough food. Like so many things in nature, one ability morphed into using it to increase their food gathering abilities. They were the kings of the skies and it must have been something else to see a flock of them circling overhead.

[@shadowraith1]

An excellent presentation. Wonder if will ever know where pterosaurs came from or have a complete lineage. Thanks👍🦅👍

[@ashenen2278]

It's discussed that Scansoriopterygids were maybe not dinosaurs. But at least those were archosaurs with gliding membranes. And these arboreal theories reminded me of them

[@oxenfree6192]

I'm a simple man. I see PBS Eons, I click.

[@tonyvu3235]

Oliver unoriginal

[@giyahan8840]

Quantum mechanics... allows this

[@iTzNikkitty]

In some ways, the pterosaurs going extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period is even more tragic than the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs. At least with dinosaurs, their legacy still lives on in birds today, but with pterosaurs? They're all gone, and there's nothing quite like them around today. One of only a handful of groups that took that great bold leap into the sky, and the only one that isn't still with us to this day.

[@factanonverba7547]

Wow, I never knew birds and pterosaurs coexisted for 60 million years.

[@溝尻マリオ]

The Wing evolution on Pterosaurs is most likely based off on ground up theory, because of the way in witch the took off on flight, which is very different from the way birds take off on flight. The Pterosaurs used it's arms to get impulse and the Birds use their legs!

[@eliburry-schnepp6012]

Agreed.

[@indomleon]

I wonder if pterosaur ancestors jumped to catch food, and their arms grew longer to support a cat-like vertical jump, and once their arms grew long enough, they started perfecting the vaulting takeoff pterosaurs use, and only after that vaulting behavior developed did the wings start to develop to resemble wings

[@furatceylan8]

finally, a fun episode with blake! this reminds me of the video how bats evolved their ability to fly, the hypothesis being an arboreal mammal may or may not have had the echolocation before it had wings or the other way around. i think an arboreal / semi-arboreal lifestyle / habitat makes the most sense from an evolutionary standpoint. climbing for foraging for insects and fruit in trees, escape from predators by jumping from trees would have been an evolutionary advantage to be faster and more agile - until they were competent gliders. then from gliding to powered flight - well, its a stretch, but hey, they have had over 100.000.000 years, in this time their bodyplans probably changed dramatically to larger, smaller, more arboreal or more terrestrial lifestyles - until there was one (or maybe several) that gained the ability to fly. it would be interesting what other potential ancestors pterosaurs might have had.

[@dustinnagy6011]

Could whales ever evolve gill-like structures in the future?

i think so, some turtles can get oxygen through their anus, water breathing can be redeveloped. However whales don't really have that evolutionary pressure to facilitate such a sudden change

[@alexanderofrhodes9622]

They could, but whales are doing well breathing air. A ton of atmospheric O² would have to dump into the ocean over millions of years to create that kind of change

[@spindash64]

SemiPro Student This. Water breathing is a pretty big downgrade from air breathing in the energy you can get

[@dustinnagy6011]

Thanks guys! I figured there was some reasonable explanation for this but it’s always sparked my curiosity, especially with the weird forms natural selection can produce! Thanks again for the helpful responses!

[@Xnaut314]

Most likely not. There's a reason why every aquatic tetrapod to ever exist has been an air breather. The evolutionary process of evolving lungs meant fundamentally changing the genomics for gill formation, which surely including rearranging the genes to a point there simply reversing the mutations just isn't evolutionarily advantageous, if not possible.

[@myrmatta1]

I'm having PTSD flashbacks from school now because at the end of the video he said, "show your work." Thanks for bringing back those memories.....

[@Bhoddisatva]

I'd like to see an episode on echo-location and its development.

[@thathobbitlife]

Watch their recent bat episode, they discuss it.

[@joaoliporace1013]

Ground up makes the most sense energetically. Witton talks about this in his book. Basically, to be able to fly, you need a ton of energy to spend. Your metabolic rate needs to be higher and, more importantly, you need to be endothermic. Tree-dwelling creatures from that time, and even gliders, to this day, are very slow or don't have an active lifestyle to support powered flight. A running, jumping therapod, however, does. The pterosaurs ancestors likely used to hunt small insects on the ground. Since the tree tops didn't have much competition, they developed better fingers to climb and hop along the branches. Eventually, gliding was developed and then the rest is history. I'd still argue they first evolved in forests, jungles or canyons. Scleromorchlus taylori isn't really the ancestor of pterosaurs, but likely a byproduct of the true ancestor, more adapted to such habitats.

[@montagdp]

Imagine a 10 meter pterosaur sharing airspace with modern airplanes.

[@Evil_Vegan]

Pterosaurs are my fave... closest thing to real life dragons... such magnificent magical creatures, thanks.

[@jonathantatler]

I'm not an evolutionary biologist but I think the evolutionary pressure on jumping from predators is higher, aids survival, than getting better at catching prey. How do we think flying squirrels evolved? Are there any predator birds that use a guided leap' to aid catching prey?

[@patrickmccurry1563]

Patagia are very very different from wings. I don't think comparing their evolution is very useful.

[@BonaparteBardithion]

Ostriches use their wings to bank turns. That's sort of like it. I'm trying to think of examples of semi-flightless birds. Chickens, maybe? Most birds fall into either ratite or fully flying.

[@spanishmountains4588]

@@BonaparteBardithion True, but does a bipedal advantage correlate to a quadruped?

[@BonaparteBardithion]

@@spanishmountains4588 Maybe not. I agree it's interesting that the simplified models use hunting as the evolutionary pressure rather than escape.

[@ViridianForests]

@@BonaparteBardithion Seeing as most of these species were probably in the middle grounds of being both a hunter and prey, the things evolved most probably were things that worked favorably with both escape and hunting without hindering either. But yeah, I guess they don't mention both since that would make their arguments too long when we're seeing abbreviated theories?

[@DISTurbedwaffle918]

Based on their projected launching method, which goes from a 4-legged run into flight, it seems to make most sense that they'd be ground dwelling in origin. Also look at which finger developed into the main attachment point for the wing - in birds and bats, who almost certainly came from arboreal animals, all fingers became parts of the wing - in pterosaurs, only the last digit makes up the wing, while the rest are retained for walking. This indicates that, early on in their evolution, being able to walk on those limbs was nearly as important as flying with them. The fact that the wing design is so distinct from birds and bats is also potentially indicative of a different origin of flight in the group.

[@Hell-yeah420.69]

I really liked this episode, I thought you should know that. Thank you!

[@visceratrocar]

This is a great followup to the one about where birds came from.

[@skyleredgecomb1250]

I just really liked this episode. Maybe more about marine reptiles ❤️❤️

[@christophezawacki3494]

I'm waiting for all your videos, I love them so much! keep it up, you have all my support, a French fan

[@GreenMonkeyToaster]

Could you do some videos on HOW we know these things? Or even just backing up statements like "we know x because of y technology"

[@carlosrubio-valdez1681]

Love the BGM 👌 and obviously all your videos. Even make me happy. They make my week. Even seen some of then again. Keep on your great work. P.S. love your paleoartists selection.

[@ayior]

Nice, I've been waiting for this one~

[@djoniamman5318]

I wish that we can make time machine just to go back and observe all those beautiful animals who fosills never persist to this day :(

[@Lumagrowl31]

Don't get me wrong, I love all animals but maybe its better Quetzalcoatlus isn't alive today lol

[@majorRedelitE]

i bet they'd swallow us as easy as a pelicans can swallow baby sea birds and pigeons

[@rasmusn.e.m1064]

"Attention all passengers, we seem to have collided with an unidentified flying object and are now initiating an emergency landing, please raise your seats to an upright position and adopt the bracing position as demonstrated on the safety manual. Please be reminded that no smoking is allowed on this flight." xDDDD Maybe you're right

[@Ditidos]

Nah, it wouldn't be dangerous. It is just a very big vulture. You are too big for them, if anything it would have reasons to be scared of you.

[@rimmipeepsicles1870]

Bird strikes are enough. Pterosaur strikes wouldn't be much better. Birds already killed engines. Large pterosaurs would clip a whole wing from an aircraft.

[@Dinoman972]

@@Ditidos Well, maybe not. Those that fed on fish such as _Pteranodon_ and maybe those that preyed on large animals such as _Hatzegopteryx_ probably wouldn't be too problematic unless they were very hungry (in the case of _Hatzegopteryx_ and the like) or they crashed against planes during flight, but if I'm not mistaken some pterosaurs, such as _Arambourgiana_ or _Thalassodromeus_ , are thought to have preyed on rather human-sized animals, so they could be dangerous if they saw humans as food. It's kinda like with dinosaurs. Larger predators like _Tyrannosaurus_ would ignore humans because they're not nearly as filling as the usual hadrosaur and smaller ones such as _Compsognathus_ would be straight-up harmless, but the more medium-sized predators such as some dromaeosaurs and _Carnotaurus_ could certainly see humans as prey.

[@RedScarGaming]

Thank you for this video. I have been wanting to learn about pterosaur origins for ages.

[@audrey4506]

Clicked as soon as I saw this!

[@natelumbra7245]

Great video as always. I really want an Eons shirt but I don't personally dig that one. I really hope you put another one up for sale soon...

[@AryadiSubagio]

Kinda disappointed he didn't call Steve with the prefix "maboi!"

[@phoule76]

unsub

[@Rationalific]

Fascinating video. The origins of the pterosaurs is something that I am quite interested in learning about. Thanks for this! And I guess the search will continue!

[@DeWitherWarrior]

I accidentaly clicked on this video, was about to tap out- but then heard blake's voice. For real dude youre the next Attenbrough

[@AndrewTBP]

Who's Steve? This is Blake.

[@DeWitherWarrior]

@@AndrewTBP sorry i got confused with the legendary ultimate mega gazillionare donor steve

[@Invertedblueroses]

Thank you, this video answers several questions I had about pterosaurs, dinosaurs and birds.

[@odizzido]

I am not educated enough on the subject to make any claim as to which hypothesis is more likely correct.

[@EngelSpiel]

Based

[@Chikara512]

Weird thought, but what if schleromochlus started developing wings to travel across desert dunes easier? Like, starting from a high place and gliding down to the bottom to look for prey? It's like the arboreal theory but in the desert

[@HarryHelsing]

I feel like with the evidence we have there is no sign of proto pterosaurs with features adapted for tree climbing and the ones we have seem pretty clear that they weren't effective tree climbers. So perhaps they lived in uneven rocky terrain with mountain sides where jumping and perhaps sliding away from predators down steep drops was an effective method of escape. It wouldn't take much in the way of under arm membranes for such a small animal to find use of it to keep balance as they slide away from a big heavy predator that might slip and fall if they were to try and follow, especially if it was steep almost cliff like terrain. Because they look very much like jumping creatures and because jumping and climbing are two very different niches that don't typically overlap a lot. (There are no cousins of rabbits that climb, no close relatives of kangaroos that climb, I suppose there are lemurs that jump and climb but their body plan is radically different). Perhaps this creature that pterosaurs evolved from was more distantly related to this animal, did climb and was more quadrupedal? Well, maybe, but it doesn't seem we have evidence for such an animal existing especially considering that pterosaurs essentially did the equivalent of walking on their elbows which doesn't scream adapted to climbing with all fours without more specific evidence to add to the hypothesis. Plus if you look at flying squirrels and sugar gliders which evolved from flightless (glideless?) climbing creatures they have a membrane suspended more or less equally between the front and back limbs rather than the front heavy version in pterosaurs. As soon as you start to extend those front limbs you would lose climbing to a large degree which for a creature who relies on climbing would be a massive loss where as for a creature that is hopping around mountain sides it seems more of a natural progression. So I propose the sliding, falling down cliffs, jumping around hypothesis.

[@slwrabbits]

Okay, I see what you're saying, but there totally are tree kangaroos. They're arboreal. I guess they don't jump, but they look pretty well related to kangaroos to me?

[@lancep2002]

At 6:38 that long orange bit that extends off screen is a crest? How did that not get caught on things once they landed?

[@sarahernandez3904]

Next please do how did stegosaurus and all it's family members got there plates and tail spikes and how all of them look so different ALSO LOVE YOUR VIDEOS KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK 👍👍👍👍

[@WorivpuqloDMogh]

And currently we have flying mammals too. Evolution is pretty fascinating

[@W-INTERNATIONAL-SYNDICATION]

I'd like to see you guys cover the Grande Coupure.

[@armadillozenith]

Other factors of a major cosmic impact scenario that could favour bird survival over pterosaur survival occur to me. They are linked: 1. Possible resulting firestorms and hurricane-plus-force winds imply major air turbulence over wide areas. The difference of wind velocity over a small body-frame are liable to be smaller than over an immense body-frame - especially one with great wingspan and large crests. So (guessing) a pterosaur might more readily be broken up. 2. Smaller creatures would more readily find shelter (caves, burrows) than very large ones. 3. Smaller creatures lower down the food chain might have a more cautious approach to life than top predators, and so more quickly and readily hide away when anything novel and alarming, potentially dangerous, was perceived. 4. Were birds maybe more intelligent/adaptable, generally, than pterosaurs?

[@shaninejackman9395]

5:16 almost fully tricked me for a second. 😂😂

[@christopherreynolds7594]

When it comes to arboreal or terrestrial, I think arboreal is more likely as most modern flying and gliding vertabrates all had arboreal ancestors. Birds had arboreal dinosaur ancestors, bats are assumed to have arboreal ancestors, and gliding squirrels, snakes, lizards, etc are all arboreal. Also, being a terrestrial pouncer is an unusual lifestyle to develop membranes solely for hunting, as other adaptations could have served the same or better purpose, such as: stronger leg muscles, optimized anatomy, or better depth perception and dexterity. Using a membrane is unlikely to serve a valuable advantage for a pouncing hunting strategy on the ground since air time would be limited and would create drag the larger the membrane got, creating a less effective situation for gliding and less predicability of pounces. A more streamline, muscular, and dexterous build would benefit most from pouncing on mostly level ground. Perhaps pouncing from dunes or hills would provide elevation to develop the adaptation, but using dunes and hills regularly to hunt at an elevation is probably not an option or advantageous for the ancestors lacking a membrane. But through and through, we still lack a comprehensive fossil record of pterosaur ancestors, and what we do have suggests pouncing terrestrial hunters. It's possible they evolved to be arboreal, but we can't call the terrestrial theory impossible as nothing concrete suggests that. I still think arboreal gliding is most likely as most of not all flying or gliding vertabrates we know of lived a terrestrial lifestyle.

[@TheShuckmeister]

The only correct answer is the Stand Arrow

[@lukeskywalker9016]

wooow shuck here? cant believe

[@herohamza1196]

I didn't think that you like theropod/pterodactyl stuff

[@volbla]

I have never realized that birds started evolving before the extinction event. I've never even thought about it. The things we miss, huh.

[@tophers3756]

"The ground-up theory." That just sounds... messy. And painful.

[@arj3030]

I don't know anymore. Thanks again eons

[@DenshiMoe]

I was supposed to go to sleep already. But then I saw this video, and now my brain wants to stay awake theorizing how pterosaurs evolved. Well, goodbye sleep...

[@brianedwards7142]

I like the idea of winged jerboas but an arboreal origin makes more sense. Imagine if something caused bats to get really large and grow weird crests.

[@TragoudistrosMPH]

8:16 You hear that? Stay on the ground and stay small, kiddos. Don't pursue your dreams! 😢

[@hblaub]

you are damn right

[@AuroraBoBora]

You dropped so casually that birds existed back then, and it's blowing my mind

[@CloudsGirl7]

1:03 I saw that, and screamed; "WHAT?!" Mother Nature has science fiction beat.

[@jasonpost913]

Nature is weirder than fiction because nature doesn't care if it makes sense, it just needs to work.

[@venn2001ad]

I like the sentiment expressed at the end of the video, saying that if Pterosaurs stayed small, then they might have survived to roam the skies with birds today. However, the video also said that it's because of the pressures from the birds that they got so huge. So would it have been even possible for them to stay small through out the entirety of their existence, without going extinct even earlier due to birds?

[@fancydeer]

Paleo!Daddy is here to educate us about the stretchy leg dino bois? Hell yes.

[@SundariAtari]

The back track for this episode put me in trance good job