Jaime, Sordes, Peters 1998

[David Peters <davidrpeters@earthlink.net>]

Jaime wrote:

>>Hmm. Though I am aware that Dave does not regard this as evidence,
*Sordes
pilosus* shows just such an integumentary attachment.
Dave has attempted to reason through a hypothetical and irregular
de-deformation of the holotype that the "uropatagium" was part of
the trailing edge of the wing, in his reply to Unwin and Bakhurina,
1998.<<

Etc.

I think Jaime is referring to my short note to Nature in 1995. This was
written at a time when the uropatagium was unknown in pterosaurs and the
proposed uropatagium was reported to stretch from leg to leg. My reply
proposed a model in which drifting pieces of wing membrane were
responsible for the appearance of the holotype -- which was wrong.
Uropatagia are real.

My second hypothesis concerning the apparently unique deep chord wing of
Sordes appeared in Historical Biology in 2001. Here I proposed an
hypothesis in which geology, not biology gave the appearance of a deep
chord wing in Sordes, and that the uropatagium for each hind limb was
overlapped medially to give the appearance of a single sheet.

David Peters
St. Louis