Re: Flightless bat? Flightless pterosaur?

[Michael Habib <mbh3q@virginia.edu>]

Well, there is a ground-dwelling bat species, though it isn't completely
flightless (used to be two, until quite recently).

--Mike Habib


On 1/26/04 8:11 AM, "David Peters" <davidrpeters@earthlink.net> wrote:

> Jaime Headden wrote:
> 
> Potentially, a flightless bat can occur, as much as a flightless
> pterosaur.
> 
>>>>>> 
> 
> If bats and pterosaurs hatched from eggs, yes. They could walk out of
> the nest and fend for themselves after a suitable rearing period.
> 
> But they don't.
> 
> Both are born and hang on to their dear mother until mature enough, no
> sooner than 50 percent the size of the adult. More of the story will be
> out before summer.
> 
> All putative pterosaur babies are tiny adults. They are the result of
> phylogenetic size squeezes (as in early mammals, birds, dinosaurs). At
> least that's what my good old single-tree cladogram tells me.
> 
> You can tell the immature fenestrasaurs (including pterosaurs) from tiny
> adults because the tibiae are shorter than the femora in juvies. That
> helps them keep four on the floor, so to speak. Also, they don't ossify
> until independence. Ironically they have slightly smaller orbits. So
> they're not particularly "cute".
> 
> It all goes back to Cosesaurus and Longisquama, as you'll see. They all
> go through a bit of metamorphosis when puberty kicks in.
> 
> David Peters
> St. Louis
>