Biologist pterosaurs article

[darren.naish@port.ac.uk]

Thanks to everyone for their comments on the _Biologist_ 
pterosaurs article. I particularly enjoyed Chris' commentary. 
As for the bipedal vs quadrupedal issue, unfortunately 
Martill and I have become brainwashed by Unwinism but I 
don't see that arguing for quadrupedality removes the 
possibility of facultative bipedality.

In response to Dan's comments - indeed it is an oversight 
that we didn't mention Reichel, but then it's not his name 
who is on all those important monographs, and on the cover 
of the 1991 encyclopedia. Regarding co-authorship with my 
supervisor, generally speaking I do most of the work when 
our names appear on the same publication, but given that 
Dave is normally responsible for the getting of these 
opportunities in the first place I am generally (but not 
always) happy to not get top billing. A case in point is the 
BBC _Walking With Dinosaurs: The Evidence_ book. Dave 
is more than happy to admit that I did more than the 
tyrannosaur's share of the writing, but because he (not I) 
was the official BBC consulsant, they insisted on his name 
going first. 'Tis the eternal lot of the grad student...

As for the funny hat, it has been returned safe and intact to 
Dr Martill.

Incidentally I've had to speak to a lot of journalists 
following the publication of the _Biologist_ article, and one 
thing I've had a hard time communicating to them is that 
this was a _review_ article: it did not contain any original 
research done by us (Naish & Martill). This will be clear to 
all members of this list of course, but it's a bit irksome to 
hear that Naish & Martill have 'demonstrated' that 
pterosaurs did this or did that, or didn't do this or that. My 
apologies then to Chris, Dave Unwin, Eric Buffetaut and the 
other workers whose research we have naughtily received 
credit for.

In fact, if you want to know the full history of the article's 
history it was in fact a spin-off of the Channel 4 'Big 
Monster Dig' pterosaur article.

-- 
Darren Naish
School of Earth & Environmental Sciences
University of Portsmouth UK, PO1 3QL

email: darren.naish@port.ac.uk
tel: 023 92846045