Female Pterosaurs Were Crestless

Science Daily: How to Tell a Pterodactyl's Sex: Dino-Era Riddle Solved by New Fossil Find.

The discovery of a flying reptile fossilised together with an egg in Jurassic rocks (about 160 million years old) in China provides the first direct evidence for gender in these extinct fliers. This fossil shows that females were crestless, solving the long-standing problem of what some pterosaurs did with their spectacular head crests: showy displays by males.

The find was made by an international team of researchers from the Universities of Leicester, Lincoln and the Geological Institute, Beijing. Details of the unique new find are published in the journal Science.

David Unwin, a palaeobiologist in the Department of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, was part of the research team that studied the fossil. He said:

"Pterosaurs, flying reptiles, also known as pterodactyls, dominated the skies in the Mesozoic Era, the age of dinosaurs, 220-65 million years ago. Many pterosaurs have head crests. In the most spectacular cases these can reach five times the height of the skull. Scientists have long suspected that these crests were used for some kind of display or signalling and may have been confined to males, while females were crestless. But, in the absence of any direct evidence for gender this idea remained speculative and crested and crestless forms were often separated into completely different species."

Could Pterosaurs and Plesiosaurs Breathe Fire?

"And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died." -- Numbers 21:6

"Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint;" -- Deuteronomy 8:15

"The burden of the beasts of the south: into the land of trouble and anguish, from whence come the young and old lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they will carry their riches upon the shoulders of young asses, and their treasures upon the bunches of camels, to a people that shall not profit them." -- Isaiah 30:6

"Out of his [Leviathan's] mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out. Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or caldron. His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth." -- Job 41:19-21

"There is evidence that pterosaurs may have flown the skies a couple thousand years ago. There are numerous depictions precise enough to identify the pterosaur species, Scaphognathus crassirostris, from several cultures of antiquity. Since that species is the only long-tailed species with a head crest, it is readily identified." -- John Goertzen, zoologist, 1998

"The notion of a 'fire-breathing dragon' is regularly held up to ridicule any relationship between dinosaurs and dragons. Actually, scientists would find it very easy to explain an animal that could literally breathe out flames. Many animals generate methane in their digestive tracts. Methane, or natural gas, is quite flammable, and there's a college prank (which I will not describe) based on setting human methane on fire! Some scientists think that dinosaurs belched so much methane that a 'greenhouse gas' may have helped keep the polar regions of the earth warm! Scientists also know of dinosaurs that had cavities in their skulls with tubular passages leading to the fronts of their mouths. Imagine such chambers contained an enzyme that would accelerate the chemical reaction between methane and oxygen. If the enzyme were injected just as the belching dinosaur opened its mouth, the methane blast would burst into a fiery stream of flame as the methane hit the oxygen in the air." -- Gary Parker, scientist, 2007

"The Parasaurolophus, the 'Crested Lizard,' had a single bony crest rising from it's nostrils and going back over it's head, looking something like a very large horn. The males had a larger crest than the females. Inside the crests were very large nasal cavities, much larger than needed for smell." -- Grady S. McMurtry, theologian, 2009

"Dinosaurs had a lot of vegetable materials in their stomachs and it would have produced a lot of methane gas. Sea dwelling reptiles could have easily had it too, especially if they ate kelp and similar aquatic plants. So, here we would have a source of fuel for a fire breathing dragon." -- Grady S. McMurtry, theologian, 2009

Were Pterosaurs Too Big To Fly?

Not on a smaller Earth: Pterodactyls were too heavy to fly, scientist claims.

The new research claims that the ancient reptiles, which could grow to the size of small aeroplanes, were too heavy to fly - even with their massive wings.

The problem, according to a leading scientist, is that they could not flap fast enough to create the thrust to keep their enormous bulk airborne.

The 'dinosaur' popularly known as a pterodactyl is actually called a reptile called a pterosaur, which is Greek for flying lizard.

It existed alongside the dinosaurs between 251 and 65 million years ago, and were thought to be the biggest creatures to ever take to the air.

The fossilised remains of one example had a wing span of more than 15 metres.

But Katsufumi Sato, a Japanese scientist, who collected data from five large birds including the world's biggest, the wandering albatross, has calculated that it was physically impossible for them to stay aloft.

The University of Tokyo professor claims that the largest animal capable of soaring across the sky unaided could have weighed no more than 40kg (88lbs) or the size of a labrador dog.