Unlike flamingos, Pterodaustro seems to have filter fed by swinging
the lower mandible aftward through the water, creating a pair of
counter-rotating eddies around the mandible that swirled water and
particulates into position inside the filter -- and then swinging the
lower mandible back forward, to expell the water through the filter
while trapping the particulates. No gullet mechanism involved,
whether they had one or not.
JimC
----- Original Message ----- From: <Danvarner@aol.com>
To: <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Cc: <danchure@easilink.com>
Sent: Saturday, April 19, 2008 7:23 PM
Subject: Re: On the subject of mysterious absences...The Answer
In a message dated 4/19/2008 8:00:38 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
danchure@easilink.com writes:
<< Briefly: if you want to filter feed without gills, you need to
take in a
large amount of water and then somehow stop it going down your
gullet before
you spit it out past filtering surfaces such as baleen . Only
mammals can do
this,