Footprints preserved in a 150 million-year-old pterosaur runway has provided the first direct evidence of how the flying dinosaurs landed.
The runway is located in what is now southwestern France, and was once a limestone mud topped by fine-grained sediment that dried quickly enough to preserve hundreds of tracks, many of them made by seagull-sized members of the pterodactyl family.
In a paper published Wednesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, paleontologists analyzed one set of pterosaur tracks, extrapolating its motion from the arrangement of prints.
As it arrived, the dinosaur used its wings as brakes, then planted its dainty hind feet into the mud. This wasn't enough to slow its momentum; it bounced momentarily back into the air before touching down again, this time dragging its feet. Once under control, it leaned forward, placed its wingtip forelimbs on the ground, and ambled away on all fours. In this particular instance, the dinosaur turned left.
The process was similar to that observed in some birds, including the merganser pictured above, and the findings confirm earlier predictions of pterosaur landing dynamics.
As to whether the dinosaurs took flight like birds, the runway provides no no clue. "Unfortunately, none of the several dozen extended trackways excavated and studied to date ... provides any indications of how these animals took off," wrote the researchers.
See Also:
- Third Most Complete T. Rex to Be Auctioned in Vegas
- Paleontologists Find Dinosaur Protofeather
- Fossil Catches Dinosaur Red-Handed, Evolving Into Bird
- Fancy Feathers Predated Flight in Dinosaur-Bird Hybrid
Citation: "First record of a pterosaur landing trackway." Jean-Michel Mazin, Jean-Paul Billon-Bruyat and Kevin Padian. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, August 19, 2009. *
*
Images: Proceedings of the Royal Society B*
Brandon Keim's Twitter stream and reportorial outtakes, Wired Science on Twitter.
