Re: Discovery tonight ... 8 pm

[Mike Habib <habib@jhmi.edu>]

Indeed.  It would seem that this UV sight issue came up from a very  
brief set of conversations that I had with the writers on  
Quetzalcoatlus vision.  In essence, they asked me if its vision would  
be similar to that of birds.  My response, essentially, was that we  
obviously have no way to determine the visual system in detail, but  
that it was plausible for the acuity to be similar to other large,  
flying, non-echolocating animals, which would be things like living  
storks, raptors, etc.  Based on the Witton and Naish work on  
semiterrestrial habits, one might also speculate that the eyesight  
would be good enough to see prey on the ground.  Beyond that, no real  
information - the writers, of course, decided to be a bit more  
imaginative and bring in a mechanism seen in living raptors.

--Mike H.


Michael Habib
Assistant Professor of Biology
Chatham University
Woodland Road, Pittsburgh PA  15232
Buhl Hall, Room 226A
mhabib@chatham.edu
(443) 280-0181



On Dec 6, 2009, at 6:59 PM, David Marjanovic wrote:

> > "Flying reptile Quetzalcoatlus...Howard also notes that the creatures
> > had tremendous eyesight, seeing in ultraviolet to following[sic] the
> > urine trails of its prey."
> >
> > ...
> >
> > What?
>
> That's what extant raptors do with rodents: urine, or at least  
> rodent urine, absorbs UV and is therefore bright ultra-yellow.  
> Seeing UV is plesiomorphic for at least Osteichthyes, so it's  
> reasonable to assume that pterosaurs in general and *Q.* in  
> particular retained this capability... but stating as a matter of  
> fact that they used it this way... two words: Faux Noise.