Amazing Flugsaurier.

[Luis Rey <luisrey@ndirect.co.uk>]

I have to say, the Pterosauria has awaken.

After five days dealing in a field I do not consider myself an  
"expert", I was amazed at the amount of information and  novelties  
that can be learned in a Pterosaur Symposium. The pterosaurs experts  
and students are (mostly) a, enthusiastic fine bunch and  well  
organized too, so we had that kind of atmosphere and human touch  
always present in the SVP and SVPCA meetings.
All hail to David Hone for his boundless involvement and enthusiasm,  
a fine job indeed!  It was a pleasure to work with and for him.

Obviously one of my personal highlights was paying tribute to and  
shaking the hand of Dr.Peter Wellnhofer in his anniversary.

My thirst for dinosaurs was quenched by being as close as I could  
possibly be to two Archaeopteryx specimens >and< the original  
Compsognathus.
Some of the specimens that we had access to were as relevant  
historically as the Nefertiti bust at the Berlin Museum.

And if it wasn't enough, two of the finest museums: Solnhofen and  
Eichstaat  in just one day as part of the field trip. They even  
opened the lid of Juravenator for some of us to take photographs.  
Generous people.

A well spent week. I urge everybody to support the efforts for the  
next pterosaur meeting in China 2010.  If this pterosaur meeting was  
so well located in Munich, imagine what is going to be the next one  
with all the new stuff being discovered there.

As a post data: nobody should miss the refurbished Humboldt museum in  
Berlin. Small but more interesting, well organized and informative  
than many big ones. And has the most majestic, spectacular sauropod  
trio ever to be displayed (you can spend hours in front of them).  
Didn't mind that upward-stretched Brachiosaurus neck, but...shame  
about  tiny Kentrosaurus... somebody should have done something about  
those sprawling front legs.

Luis Rey

Visit my website
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~luisrey