Giant Pterosaurs could fly 16,000 km nonstop

Quote from source:

A new study has revealed that pterosaurs was the ultimate flying champ of the dinosaur era, and could clock up to 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometres) at a stretch.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/ad27c83beb44.jpg[/atsimg]

www.phenomenica.com...

Wow! 16,000km? Thats insane, the ultimate migration, seeing that is almost entirely across the planet.

Another interesting article that I thought I would bring to ATS, anything we are figuring about dinosaurs is a good thing.

Any thoughts?

Pred...

Mod edit:
Mod Edit: External Source Tags Instructions – Please Review This Link.

From the Terms & Conditions:Proper Attribution for the posting of copyrighted material owned by others is defined as posting a relevant snippet of the online content not to exceed 10% of the entire piece, a properly formed link back to the source website, and a clear indication of the name of the source website

"A new study has revealed"

You gotta love the classics.

Depending on the amount of time they could stay awake, they could've rode the warm air currents indefinitely. Just stretch out those wings and glide and glide. Awesome specimens.

reply to post by predator0187

That's interesting research, but they are making an educated guess on what it could do, not what it actually did. What would be the benefit of flying so far? Are they really going to be able to find thermal updrafts across that entire distance? Wouldn't they have to sleep during that long journey?

I stopped paying attention to "new dino facts" when I was about 10 years old. I find it utterly nonsensical at this point.

Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. They constantly reveal huge "oops" when revealing they have completely botch a skeletal reconstruction, making it into something that never existed. "No, this dinosaur never existed, we placed the bones in the wrong positions. It is in fact this new dinosaur."

I too, can't see why this creature would even need to fly that distance non-stop. For what reason.

reply to post by SkyBluePegasus


A new study has revealed that 4 out of 5 Paleontologists agree that new ultrabright toothpaste is what Pterosaurs would have used had they brushed their teeth.

An even newer study has revealed that Pterosaurs actually DID clean their teeth, they also flossed.

They could fly 10,000 miles non-stop and still have minty-fresh breath and a winning smile.

IT all sounds very good. I do like the topic of Dinosaurs.

My only reservation is that these so called experts are so often way off point with anything dating back that far. I do not see how they could come to this conclusion based on the little they have. Even with a full skeleton it is impossible to dictate or assume how a particular dinosaur fared in long distance flight, never mind the distance they could fly without stopping.

Why 16,000km, Why not 4000km or 26000 km as these distances are equally probable unless we were there to capture this flight first hand. Some scientists come up with complete nonsense just to get a name, knowing it can never be disproven.

Any in-flight entertainment?

Originally posted by predator0187
Wow! 16,000km? Thats insane, the ultimate migration, seeing that is almost entirely across the planet.

Yes, it does sound a little insane. The following quote from the article is probably the most intelligent and least insane:

However, Alexander Kellner, a pterosaur expert at Brazil''s National Museum in Rio de Janeiro, has his doubts because there are several things scientists still don''t know about pterosaur body structure that could affect flight distance calculations.

Having doubts is good, especially when there are so many uncertainties.

They said they had never seen fibers like that on any living animal. So how they can judge the performance characteristics seems a little shaky.

Also, ask a glider pilot if you can always find thermals. You probably can't at night, so that debunks the idea they could fly 16000km nonstop.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Well...if they started at sunrise and travelled towards the sunset they could probably be in sunshine for 16+ hours, making the thermals available for long enough. Whether this is what happened or not is beyond me.

Thanks for the input buddy.

Pred...

Originally posted by Mactire
Depending on the amount of time they could stay awake, they could've rode the warm air currents indefinitely. Just stretch out those wings and glide and glide. Awesome specimens.

With that kind of millage per tank they prolly had autopilot too.....

reply to post by _R4t_


not only that but that distance on only the weight of a human? Now that's an efficient fuel.

Pred...

Originally posted by predator0187
Well...if they started at sunrise and travelled towards the sunset they could probably be in sunshine for 16+ hours, making the thermals available for long enough. Whether this is what happened or not is beyond me.

Thanks for the input buddy.

you're welcome buddy, interesting article! I see what you're saying about the direction but 16000km is an outrageously large number. Glider pilots study the weather so they have a better chance of finding thermals than the pterosaurs, but look at the range of gliders:

en.wikipedia.org...

Improvements in aerodynamics and in the understanding of weather phenomena have allowed greater distances at higher average speeds. Long distances are now flown using any of the main sources of rising air: ridge lift, thermals and lee waves. When conditions are favorable, experienced pilots can now fly hundreds of kilometres before returning to their home airfields; occasionally flights of more than 1,000 kilometres (621 mi) are achieved.

So it seems like 1000km is quite an accomplishment for a glider pilot.

Another question about the 16 hours you suggested as a best case is, how fast could they travel, average speed? Any creature with flight can dive fast but I'm talking about sustained flight over long distances, average speed. Take that figure of distance traveled per hour, and multiply it by the optimistic 16 hours, and what distance do you come up with?

I don't know what their average flight speed would be over long distances, but I know from this article it had to be over something like 40 miles per hour:

www.scientificamerican.com...

...if you work on pterosaurs, you get used to odd things anyway,” remarks David Unwin, a paleontologist at the University of Leicester in England and author of the book The Pterosaurs: From Deep Time. “Large and giant pterosaurs pose a problem,” he explains, “because the flying speed they need to achieve is quite high, 30 or 40 miles per hour, and I have a hard time understanding how they get that fast from a standing jump.”

So thats how coconuts migrate. It wasn't Swallows.. It was Pterosaurs!

I found a video of someone claiming to have captured a pterosaur in flight:




The quetzalcoatlus had a 45 ft wing span, so it was like the size of a small plane...so cute

i was reading in this site THE TRUTH BEHIND THE SCENES duno if its true but they recon they found pterosaurs in some remote place in papua new guineu ,
but i have seen stuff in their site that has been debunked on ats ??????

I don't know if that's a RC pterafactyl in the video or not, the caption says it's moving its head but the video is so shaky how can you tell?

Even if the head moving back and forth, it doesn't mean it's not manmade:



I DO know that it's a RC pteradactyl in this video, with an 80" wingspan:



and this is a RC pterosaur:



People love these animals, and the pteradactyl was one of my favs when I was growing up.

But the pterosaurs are interesting for scientists who aren't even pterosaur experts just because of the unusual aerodynamics. The article in the OP is interesting but think we're still trying to figure out how they flew, especially how they got airborne.