Parapsicephalus purdoni

I recently received an E-mail from Grant McKee regarding this interesting specimen, but was unable to reply since his Mail Server at btinternet.com was not accepting unauthorised mail (550 must be authenticated).

 Parapsicephalus purdoni cast in the Natural History Museum, London, photographed in 1984.

The original specimen was found in the Alum Shales at Lofthouse near Whitby in about1881 by the Rev. D.W. Purdon after whom it is named. The specimen was described in 1888 by E.T. Newton being originally designated Scaphognathus purdoni.The original fossil is now in the British Geological Survey at Keyworth, Notts.

Parapsicephalus purdoni skull photographed in 1986

This skull has a historical importance as it was the first pterosaur fossil to show a brain cast.  The original specimen was reproduced in cast form and the casts were distributed to key museums.  The specimen had one side of the cranial bones removed to expose the brain cast, showing the structure of the pterosaurian brain revealing the size of the main structures.

The skull form Altdorf - Bavaria 1994

A second skull from the Epsilon Lias of Bavaria was discovered in 1994 and this specimen which is unpublished shows close conformity with the Whitby specimen.

Newton  E.T., 1888. On the skull, brain, and auditory organ of a new species of pterosaurian (Scaphognathus purdoni) from the Upper Lias near Whitby, Yorkshire. Philospophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, B 179:503-537

von Arthaber  G., 1919. Studien über Flugsaurier auf Grund der Bearbeitung des Wiener exemplars von Dorygnathus banthensis Theod Sp., Denkschriften der königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Klasse 97:391-464

Unwin  D. M., 2003. On the phylogeny and evolutionary history of pterosaurs, In: Evolution and Palaeobiology of Pterosaurs, edited by Buffetaut, E., and Mazin, J.-M., Geological Society Special Publication, n. 217, p. 139-190

Visting Lyme Regis

A recent trip to Lyme Regis allowed me to see the improvements to the Philpot Museum, now the Lyme Regis Museum.  For some time now the museum has had a Curator, which has been a distinct advantage.  The arches have been incorporated into the museum building and the displays have been updated and improved to fit in with the heritage status of the Jurassic Coast.

The Jurassic fossils are displayed in the downstairs main gallery and in the cabinets there is a small local slab with the premaxilla and teeth of the upper jaw of Dimorphodon macronyx - originally labelled Pterodactyle.

This is a fine specimen and I originally photographed it in September 1980 when John Fowles was Hon. Curator of the museum.  This specimen was collected by James Harrison - the original Mary Anning finds are in the Natural History Museum, London.

Much more impressive is a drawing by Joseph Anning (Mary's brother) which is made using reconstituted belemnite ink from specimens collected at the undercliff at Lyme.  As far as I am aware, this is the only drawing of a pterosaur fossil that has been rendered in this way and it is unique.  It is worth seeing before the colour fades, though fossil belemnite ink is quite stable compared to other mediums of art.
Just a short trip up the coast to Charmouth and there is the Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre.  West Bay at Bridport has the Jurassic Pier where you can look across to the cliffs of the coast.  There is a lot to see and do on this coast.

Ornithocheirus wing

Ornithocheirus is well documented in the UK collections, but many of the remains are fragmentary, consisting of partial bones and joint associations. I thought it would be interesting to use some of the specimens to compile a model of a whole wing.  All of the bone ends are preserved and in some cases the lengths of the bones are clear, other bone lengths can be extrapolated.

The main stumbling blocks are identifying the ends of wing phalanges 2 and 3, and scaling the bones to the same sized individual.  The pteroid bone is also an issue since it is seldom preserved or identified in fragmentary remains.  This wing is an estimation for this exercise, based largely on O. sedgwicki remains;

Assembled, this wing has a length of 90cm, giving the whole pterosaur a wingspan of about 2m.  This is a good medium size pterosaur, though many Ornithocheirids were much bigger than this. Coloborhynchus piscator would have had a wingspan of about 4m, which is more typical of the larger Ornithocheirids.

When the wing is examined as a whole it is quite apparent that the joints would have had a limited range of movement, being unable to fold completely.  This is typical of the larger pterosaurs indicating that they would have been very efficient on the wing, but very awkward on the ground.  Pneumatic foramen are observed in all of the main wing bones showing that in life they would have been filled with air, making the wing a very light structure.

Pterosaurs and Cryptozoology

For a century, almost as long as pterosaurs have been in the popular domain, people have occasionally reported sightings of live animals.  They are usually reported by word of mouth and there seems to be little, if any, supporting evidence.  I am a doubter myself, as I see two trends at work here.  Firstly, the reports of sightings have been coloured with the changes in scientific thinking about pterosaur anatomy over the years.  Secondly, most of the sightings occur in areas where UFO sightings are common.  Another concern of mine is that I cannot find a sighting reported by a biologist or a palaeontologist with detailed knowledge.

Some reports are obviously misguided - examples like frigate birds seen by tourists and storks seen in dim light.  There have also been a number of clever or crude hoaxes which have been disproved.  However, there are some reports that cannot be resolved due to lack of evidence.

Kongamato - This is a creature reported from East Africa by lake fishermen.  The name roughly translates as "attacker of boats" The culprit could be a long necked species of stork, but with no firm evidence, this legend cannot be verified.

Ropen - Reported from the Malaysian islands and New Guinea, this large flying creature is reputed to be a very large long tailed pterosaur.  Sightings have not been confirmed.  There are also local island names such as Seclo-bali, Duwas and Kor. Occasionally there are stories about the creature being bio-luminescent, though this appears to be less common than the long tailed flying creature that is seen at dusk.

The basic science would suggest that these sightings are misguided.  The last evidence of pterosaurs comes from 64 million years ago as fossil bones.  At the time of the large pterosaurs the atmospheric oxygen level was about 4% higher that it is today which would make such a large flying creature a physical improbability in the modern day atmosphere.  It is also the case that the long tailed pterosaurs show no fossil evidence in the Upper Cretaceous Era.  Such a creature would be unsafe around forested areas as it would risk damaging its wings. It would most likely rest and nest in a flat open area as well as having a large ranging pattern of flight to find food and mates.  Such a population would not be viable for any length of time without at least a few dozen breeding individuals which would be clearly visible and easy to find with modern technology.

Modern day pterosaurs would be much easier to find than Big Foot, Yeti or the Loch Ness monster as they would need to fly in the open to move between feeding sites.  Clearly, chasing smoke can be fun for some enthusiasts.  I would be delighted if someone found a modern day pterosaur, but I am not going to join the search myself.

Australian Pterosaurs

Australia is a vast continent with a relatively small population.  It was in 1980 that the first pterosaur remains were recorded and published in Nature.  They included a scapulo-coracoid of an unusual type that had a strut at the back of the articular joint.  There are some similarities with pteranodontid specimens, but essentially it is an unknown species that has not been seen anywhere else.

 The model in the photograph gives an impression of the overall shape.  The original specimen QM-F10612 From the Flaggy Limestones of the Toolebuc Formation about 13km from Hamilton Hotel is now in the Queensland Museum.  About 500m away, two other specimens of pterosaur were discovered.  QM-F10613 a fused mandible with 5 pairs of alvioli and QM-F10614 a single vertebra.  It is not known if they represent the same pterosaur.

In the New Zealand Geological Survey collection is NZGS CD467 collected from Mangahouanga Stream, Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand.  This is a distal Ulna fragment from an azdarchid pterosaur.  It is considered to be similar to Arambourgiania though the detail suggests a different type of pterosaur.

Another specimen is of a Mid-jaw fragment from the Allaru Mudstone of Queensland, Australia. This specimen is considered to show a resemblance to Anhanguera santanae but like most of the Australian material it has unique features which may well set it apart from the rest of the world.

A few additional pterosaur fragments indicate that Australia was colonised by pterosaurs from the major Groups during the Cretaceous.  It is also likely that the pterosaur fauna of the Jurassic was specific to the Australian continent, but with so few finds it is not possible to make sensible conclusions.  Many of the continents show this pattern of finds over much of their geological history.  It is only at specific sites that the fine pterosaur fossils tend to be found, where preservation is very good.  As there has not been such a site discovered in Australia, the finds tend to be representative of the normal background evidence for the fossil record.

• Molnar, R. E., Thulborn, R. A., 1980 First Pterosaur from Australia, Nature, London, Vol.288, Pp.361-363
  
• Molnar, R. E. 1987 A Pterosaur pelvis from western Queensland, Australia, Alcheringa, 11, 87-94 ISSN 0311 5518
  
• Wiffen, J., Molnar, R. E., 1988 First pterosaur from New Zealand. Alcheringa 12, 53–59.
  
• Molnar R. E., 1998. Anhanguera sp. P. 82. In Tomida, Y. (ed.) Dinosaurs of Gondwana. (Yomiuri Shimbun: Tokyo) (in Japanese)
• Molnar, R.E., and Thulborn, R.A., 2007. An incomplete pterosaur skull from the Cretaceus of north-central Queensland, Australia. Arquivos do Museu Nacional, Rio de Janeiro 65(4):461-470. 
• Fletcher, T. L., Salisbury S. W. and Cook, A. G, 2007. New pterosaur fossils from the Early Cretaceous (Aptian-Albian) of western Queensland, Australia. In: Warren, A., Geological Society of Australia Abstracts No. 85. 11th Conference on Australian Vertebrate Evolution, Palaeontology and Systematics, 2007, Melbourne, Australia, (26-26). April, 2007.

Pterosaurs: Dragons of the Air

Friday 25 June 2010, 10:00am - Sunday 4 July 2010, 20:30pm

The Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London is just a short walk from Covent Garden or Westminster and it is within easy access of Waterloo, Charring Cross and Embankment Stations. In late June it is to become home to some of the largest pterosaurs in the UK.
The University of Portsmouth, supported by the Royal Society are participating in the London Summer Science Festival. This exhibition celebrates the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society. The project involves making life size models of pterosaurs and standing them outside the Royal Festival Hall. Some of the models will be suspended in flying poses and others will be on the ground. Mark Witton is the host of this event and his team are working hard to meet the deadline with some well developed modelling techniques.
The frames for the large models have been engineered on the Isle of Wight by Hoverworks and the main structures are carved from Styrofoam. The construction has been filmed by the BBC at different stages of the work, so it seems that there will be a program in the future to document this rather gigantic modelling project. For anyone who is unsure of the size of these large flying creatures, this exhibition will be a real eye-opener. The exhibits include the largest ground standing model of a pterosaur ever exhibited. The only thing that has come close to this is a composite picture that Matt Wedell produced in 2006 which was updated in June 2008 to include a scale drawing of Mark Witton's Hertzagopteryx image. Good old Photoshop!

Images credited to the University of Portsmouth and the BBC.

Sculpting pterosaur bones

Bruce Mohn is a palaeo-artist who has produces fine models of dinosaurs and other prehistoric species, including Pterodactylus and Rhamphorhynchus. Many of his works are in museums and I admire his skill and accuracy in portraying these subjects. Above is one of his pictures showing some of the bones of his Rhamphorhynchus model during development.
I thought it would be a good idea to have a go and produce a model of my own. Bruce modelled much of his Rhamphorhynchus bones on R. gemmingi. I thought it would be fun to have a go at another species, R. longimanus (Just because I have lots of photographs).
Having made a basic modelling kit from bits of driftwood and an ice-cream lolly stick, I went out and purchased some modelling clay. The best option seemed a plastic clay which can be baked hard when shaped. There are several types on the market - Fimo is easy to work, but contracts a little when baked. Sculpey requires a bit more skill to work, but has the advantage of retaining its size when baked. It can also be re-baked several times and sanded or carved when set. There are also several types of air dry clay, but you need to be very good to complete a model in one go. I chose Sculpey modelling clay.
The first stage in the operation is to take a small piece of clay and kneed it between your fingers until it is soft. Shape a blank (A) which is the shape you need, but simple in form. Bake at 125°C for 20 minutes (30 minutes for big bits) and cool. The blank shape can be carved and built up using more clay to form the basic shape of the bone (B). This can then be baked again to harden the added detail. Carving, sanding, building up and baking can be done as many times as necessary. The final bake needs to be at 130°C for 30 minutes. If you go any hotter, the structure of the clay will blow out and release gas.

 I was quite please with the final trial model of the humerus. It just needs a little dressing and painting to make a passable display specimen. The quality of my first piece of work does not compare with the professional finish on Bruce's work, but everyone starts as a novice, it can only get better with time.

The Sculpey clay also works well in fairly flat silicon moulds. I have reproduced castings of trilobite specimens using this medium with very good results.