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NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 05 May 2025 00:52:09 +0000
Date: Sun, 4 May 2025 17:52:09 -0700
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From: John Harshman <john.harshman@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Secondarily flightless (or partially terrestrial) pterosaurs?
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On 5/4/25 9:03 AM, erik simpson wrote:
> Identifying pterosaur trackmakers provides critical insights into 
> mid-Mesozoic ground invasion
> 
> Summary
> Fossilized tracks have provided unique insights into the distribution, 
> behavior, and ecology of extinct taxa. Moreover, because they are 
> abundant and often have distinct distributions in time and space 
> compared with the body fossil record, they have considerable potential 
> for testing and extending macroevolutionary hypotheses. The key to 
> unlocking this vast potential lies in reliably linking tracks to their 
> producers, but this remains a persistent challenge. This limitation is 
> particularly evident among pterosaurs, the dominant flying vertebrates 
> of the Mesozoic. Despite an extensive record of pterosaur tracks 
> spanning more than 100 million years, the identities of trackmakers are 
> unclear in most cases, limiting their use for addressing key questions 
> about pterosaur ecology and evolution. In this study, we employ 
> quantitative analyses and diagnostic features of pedal anatomy to 
> directly link three distinct pterosaur track morphotypes to specific 
> pterodactyloid clades: ctenochasmatoids, dsungaripterids, and 
> neoazhdarchians. These results considerably extend the known 
> biogeographic distribution of these clades, supporting macroevolutionary 
> and ecological hypotheses derived from analyses of the body fossil 
> record. The absence of pterosaur tracks prior to the Middle Jurassic 
> supports evidence from hand and foot morphology indicating that early 
> pterosaurs were arboreal or scansorial. Track evidence demonstrates a 
> major radiation of derived pterodactyloid pterosaurs into terrestrial 
> niches beginning in the Middle Jurassic. Successive clades maintained a 
> strong presence across diverse terrestrial environments throughout the 
> latter half of the Mesozoic, highlighting the evolutionary versatility 
> and ecological significance of pterosaurs in terrestrial environments.
> 
> https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(25)00446-4

It's been well established that most azhdarchids were terrestrial 
predators, though I don't think any have been identified as flightless.