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Old 02-18-2019, 10:07 PM   #51
lwcamp
 
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Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: The plutonium rich regions of Washington State
Default Re: Pterosaur Size, Weight, ST and Maximum Encumbrance when Flying

Huh. I thought I remembered a Mark Witton blog post (he's a real-life pterosaur researcher) saying that pterosaur bones, although hollow, were not pneumatized like bird bones. Now I read that they are (and another Mark Witton blog post comes up confirming this). So, shows what I know.

Also, for what it is worth, unidirectional airflow has been demonstrated in the lungs of American alligators, green iguanas, and savanna monitor lizards. And all birds, of course. This doesn't mean that all these other animals have hyper-efficient respiration like birds do - iguanas in particular are known to have relatively poor endurance, and while alligators and monitors have pretty amazing endurance for (non-avian) reptiles, they're somewhat mediocre compared to mammals.

So, we have some evidence that unidirectional airflow is ancestral to all the reptiles. Thus, it is quite likely that pterosaurs had unidirectional lungs. Exactly how bird-like the lungs were is not known (and may never be known, because lungs do not fossilize well). It is entirely reasonable to suppose that the crocodile model proposed in the article referenced by Rupert's links works for pterosaurs. It is also likely that pterosaur breathing was highly efficient, because they would need that for powered flight. Scientifically, I don't think that at this time we can make a comparison between pterosaurs and either birds or mammals - but for a game there is absolutely no evidence saying that they were not as efficient of breathers as birds, so go ahead and make your pterosaurs that way!

Luke
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dragons, pterodactyl, pterosaur, pterosaurs, realistic fantasy

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