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Eurwentala — How not to draw pterosaurs
Published: 2011-10-23 14:10:25 +0000 UTC; Views: 5974; Favourites: 88; Downloads: 1
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Two David Peters -style pterosaurs. Peters' methods and reconstructions are not generally accepted among paleontologists, and, to be honest, his pterosaurs look more like fantasy creatures than actual living animals.I know he should probably be completely ignored, but these sure are fun to draw. I don't know how badly I'm mispreseting his ideas, but both are drawn after material found from his website.
Below is the Eudimorphodon-like basal pterosaur MPUM 6009. The upper guy is the hilarious bipedally running Quetzalcoatlus.
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Comments: 77
Unfortunately there's not much room for imaginative speculation in the scientific literature. Maybe paleontologists are just leaving the speculation to us paleoartists, since we are free to do it.
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Maybe it's just better that way
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If only he was sane and does proper research, his idea might have been taken seriously.
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Except that if he actually did proper research, he would never have suggested many of his crazier ideas. Fly-size, boneless baby pterosaurs, for example.
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WHAT? Okay it is more ludicrous than the Triassic Squidbilly!
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Around the same ballpark of craziness, yes.
Apparently, he sees embryos in many pterosaur fossils, but since many are just smudges that don't contain anything to call bones, he argues that they are unossified with an entire skeleton of cartilage. Also, he sees these things in tiny specimens that others consider to be juveniles themselves, and ends up with hatchling pterosaurs with a wingspan of less than 2 cm. He then argues that they either had to live among leaf litter to avoid drying or had some kind of completely unknown way to avoid losing water.
I also learned that unlike any other vertebrate, pterosaur babies did not have short skulls and large heads, but had adult-like proportions their whole life. That, apparently, is why the juvenile-like small pterosaurs are all full-grown specimens of different species. Right.
Also, it seems impossible to actually find anything from his website. I read these things just a few days ago but didn't find them again with a short search. I's probably have to go through the whole pterosaur pages.
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Do you know if there are 2 guys with the same name in paleontology, because I have a kid's book on evolution by a David Peters, and it is quite comprehensive and sane.
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As far as I know, it's the same guy. He used to write and illustrate nice books before getting, apparently, a case of pterosaurs-are-lizards-fetish.
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Don't a lot of animals today look like fantasy creatures?
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Admitted.
I was being slightly unclear. What I meant was that these have as weird and unpractical proportions as some of the more freaky chimaeric fantasy creatures. Manticores or hippogriffs, for example.
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Yeah I know what you meant hehe.
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*I don't know how badly I'm mispreseting his ideas, but both are drawn after material found from his website.
You got it spot on. only thing missing is pterosaur babies which peters sees in almost evey pterosaur fossil hes "analyzed" with photoshop.
Peters aside, really lovely/cool/trippy drawings!
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I might get back to the babies later if the inspiration strikes. I just found the hilarious piece of (dis)information that the tiniest known pterosaur hatchling was actually an adult specimen whose young would have been the size of house flies! What a mental image.
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Aw, that's so funny that I wish it was true!
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Oh wow! I've read about Dave Peters, and I've got the distinct feeling that the guy is more than a bit unhinged. It does make for an interesting, though very trippy, image though!
For some reason the Quetzalcoatlus reminds me of March Of the Dinosaur that had probably the worst Azhdarchid seen on TV in recent memory.
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It's a shame, since he has clearly put a lot of time and effort to the webpage and included skeletals of dozens of obscure and interesting animals. If one could trust them, Reptile Evolution would be one of the best paleo sites in the internet.
I haven't seen March of the Dinosaurs, but if the azhdarchid looked like that, it sure was bad...
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I was so overjoyed when I first happened upon that website, unaware of who was behind it. So many skeletals of pre-dinosaurian archosauromorphs! If only someone could administer him a reality check.
The MotD azhdarchid didn't look like that, it was if possible, actually worse! Bipedal, hairless, devoid of any free fingers on its hand, and portrayed as some kind of a pterosaurian vulture.
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I just had to find the MotD Quetzalcoatlus on Youtube. Yes, it is worse.
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Most amusing is that, in his bullshit essay to "disprove" quadrupedal launch, he links to his own skeletal drawings (which are rubish, of course) to state that the humerus is thinner than the femur, yet his own drawings show the exact opposite!
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I'm not surprised. I also found from his webpage a detailed reconstruction of the hip bones of Longisquama showing how they are intermediate between Cosesaurus/Sharovipteryx and pterosaurs. You know, the Longisquama whose only known specimen is... kind of missing everything behind the ribs. I also found the astonishing "fact" that the smallest pterosaur hatchlings had a wingspan of 1,6 cm (!)
Oh dear, I might need to draw the fly-sized baby pterosaur...
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And, well, he is also getting on the nerves of people specialised in basal diapsids. Appearently he included anteorbital frenestrae in tons of species that didn't, to further suggest his nonsensical views on sauropsid evolution.
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That he really seems to have. 
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