The Whitfield Pteranodon Photographs

These photographs were taken by Brian Wickins who was part of the original team working on the George Whitfield Pteranodon flying model.  The digital images were created from the original stills in 2006 and the copyright is from that time.  My images here are copied in 2011 with permission.

The first photograph shows the Pteranodon model on a rig as a Concorde takes off.  The aircraft in this picture is G-BBDG, Concorde 202 in the initial British Airways livery.  The aircraft first flew at Filton on 13 Feb 1974 and was the fist Concorde to land at Heathrow on 6th July 1974. The initial speedbird livery was replaced in 1977. This gives the photograph a date frame.

The launch was a grand affair with lots of local interest.  In 1974 most flying models were hand launched.  Today it is more likely to see them air launched or launched from a cable tow or a ramp.  This was an exceptionally large model to hand launch as it had a 7m wingspan and this was the first time such a large  representation of a fossil animal had been attempted.

The third picture shows a view of the body cavity which contained the control kit.  Batteries and servers were quite large at the time and imposed weight issues which had to be factored into the design.

Bramwell C. D. and Whitfield G. R., 1970, Flying speed of the largest aerial vertebrate. Nature, Lond.225, 660–661.
Whitfield G. R. and Milford J. R., 1971, An Instrumented Glider for Meteorological Research, Meteorology volume I, number 4
Bramwell C. D. and Whitfield G. R., 1974, Biomechanics of Pteranodon. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London, B.267, pp.503-581
Bramwell C. D. and Whitfield G. R., 1974, D. M. S. Watson’s notes on pterosaurs. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B 267, 587–589.

Updating the Pterosaur Database

As a rule, the pterosaur database is updated on a monthly basis.  It has been quite some time since an update has been made as I have been involved in the UK National Census and have had little time to think about pterosaurs in the last 14 weeks.

A few new and varied pterosaur pages have been added or updated on the site.  Over the past 3 years a vast amount of pterosaur information and new finds have come to light.  When this type of thing happens, there is usually a following wind that merges new species into the existing framework.  I suspect that future updates will not be long coming.

To enhance the presentation pages, a number of embedded videos have been included.  The copyright and links to these web video clips is held by the originators and it is the first time that embedded content has been included on these pterosaur web pages.

http://www.pterosaur.co.uk/archive/Presentations/PPT.htm

The Whitfield Pteranodon

On the 13th March this year I was contacted by Roger Bentley of the University of Reading who was involved in closing down an engineering company.  He had in his possession the original flying pteranodon model used by George Whitfield to evaluate the findings of the Bramwell and Whitfield paper on the Biomechanics of Pteranodon.

The glider was designed to be an accurate representation of the Pterosaur, having a 7 meter wingspan.  Wing movement was originally controlled by servers and wires which adjusted the wings and legs to give flexion to the fabric wing membrane. The model has some repairs where the structure was damaged or modified during test flights.

This was the first controllable flying model of a pterosaur and I thought this model had been destroyed in 1974, but it was dismantled in an attic store room, a little worse for wear.

After a few E-mails, Dave Martill took up the gauntlet and went to collect the model which is now residing at Portsmouth University, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences.

There are also some wonderful photographs of the tests, but I am unable to publish them without copyright permission.

Bramwell C. D. and Whitfield G. R., 1974, Biomechanics of Pteranodon, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. B. 267

Darwinopterus egg

A pterosaur find in 2009, from the Cretaceous deposits of Liouning Province in North Eastern China, has allowed sex determination in the pterosaur Darwinopterus.  A number of specimens of this pterosaur are known and this recent find has revealed an uncrested individual with a ready to lay egg.

This pterosaur was fossilized after falling into the sea with a wing injury.  The egg clearly makes this a female and as a result, it appears that all of the males sported cranial crests whilst the females were crestless.  If this rule can be applied to other pterosaur species, it may be that many exhibit this type of sexual dimorphism.


Dr Charles Deeming of Lincoln University assisted in the analysis of the pterosaur fossil when it was in the UK. The fossil is currently held in the Zhejiang Museum of Natural History, Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China.

Lü L., Unwin D.M., Deeming D.C., Jin X., Liu Y. and  Ji Q., 2011, An Egg-Adult Association, Gender, and Reproduction in Pterosaurs. Science 21 January 2011: Vol. 331 no. 6015 pp. 321- 324 DOI: 10.1126/science.1197323

The buz around a new pterosaur find

 Pterosaur eggs are in the news again.  A specimen egg in the collection of a texas enthusiast, Dr Neal Naranjo, has been scanned to reveal a pterosaur embryo inside.  The egg is destined to be included in the collections of a new museum at Lufkin, Texas.

archaeology news network blogspot

ktre.com

This is an unusual find and it will complement the previous finds from China and Argentina earlier this century.  The images and location details have not yet been published, but when they are available, the study of pterosaur reproduction will be enhanced considerably.  It is clear from the Chinese specimens that pterosaurs had eggs with thin leathery shells.  The Argentine specimen was fossilised amongst juvenile animals which is a strong suggestion of birth and growth in colonies and it is apparent that pterosaurs were hatched with completely formed wings.  Accepting that the shape and proportions of all of the known pterosaur eggs are similar, this small sample of 4 eggs is not enough information to look at variation over time.  The published eggs all come from a period 100-130ma ago, which is a small time window in such a long evolutionary path.

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.