Clint masterfully transforms speculative pop-science into a rigorous anatomical critique, proving that even a "battle royale" can serve as a sophisticated masterclass in evolutionary biology.
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Zoologist Reacts to Who Would Win? Ultimate Pterosaur RumbleAdded:
Well, hi there.
Today is not a good day. There is a new Ultimate Rumble book, but there are a few things about this one that give me some hope that it might be somewhat less terrible than all those that came before it. First, there is some chance that Jerry has received some of our feedback from our reviews of the rest of this series of absolute garbage.
This book was published last year, well after this series of videos began.
I can tell you if I wrote a series of terrible books about a subject I thought I understood and then found out that they were full of egregious falsehoods, I would start trying harder. So, there is hope for that. Uh, plus this is a book about terasaurs, which are a ratitech group of messoic animals, the first vertebrates known to have evolved powered flight, but a group that most people don't know well. Even people that really like other messoic animals, like non-avian dinosaurs, can probably name five or fewer terasaurs. In my experience, most people can only name one, rarely more than three, which means that Jerry would absolutely need to do some research to be able to write this book. I mean, it's pretty easy to come up with 16 animals that come from the ocean and write a book without ever even using Google. It won't be a good book. It might be one of the worst books ever written, but it's possible. But not in this case. I know that Jerry couldn't name 16 terosaurs off the top of his head. There are like a dozen people on Earth that can do that. And Jerry is not one of those people. Nor does he know any of those people. And none of those people are speaking to Jerry as they're still mad about what happened in the Ultimate Dinosaur Rumble. And don't even get them started on T-Rex versus Velociraptor.
So, he had to do some research, which means that it could be better. Of course, this is probably the group of animals that are the hardest to research of any of the groupings that he's covered so far. So, it could be much much worse. But researched or not, my money is on in darken. And the reason for this will be obvious when we get to what those are. I will make sure that you learn a lot about terasaurs in this video whether or not Jerry helps me out, but I have learned to never ever underestimate Jerry's ability to disappoint me. So, let's get into this.
I will say that I like the cover art on this one. Rob Bolster generally does a great job, though the quality of his artwork is generally much lower with extinct organisms when he can't use photos. But at least all of these are real terasaurs. The creatures in this book are called terasaurs. Terasaurs were flying reptiles. They're extinct.
So far so good. And I really appreciate that he didn't say that they were flying dinosaurs. That is a very very common misconception I've discovered. In fact, when I ask the most important question that you can ask anybody, what's your favorite dinosaur? I would say certainly in the top 10 for most common answers is pterodactyl. So, it's a very common misconception and one that Jerry is not promoting, which good on you, Jerry. So, terasaurs like dinosaurs and crocodilians are arcosaurs. And so they're they are reptiles, but they're not dinosaurs. However, they are more closely related to dinosaurs than they are to crocodilians. In fact, they're way way closer. There are two big archaorian lineages. There's the pseudosukians that we just talked about recently, and there's the aimed metatarscelia. And within the A Meditatoria, which are all of the arcosaurs, more closely related to dinosaurs, and they are crocodilians, the terasaurs are among the closest relatives of all to the true dinosaurs.
16 terosaurs meet for a bracketed battle. If a terasaur loses a fight, it's out of the competition. May the best, most athletic terasaur win. Silent fact, in the word terasaur, do not pronounce the P. Um, that's probably not unreasonable. You you'll be viewed as a weirdo if you call them paterosaurs. Uh, at the same time, well, the the word terasaur means winged lizard or winged winged reptile depending on how you want to translate the the soar portion. But the but the patero relates to wing. Now, interestingly enough, in Greek where that comes from, the P wasn't silent. So, if you really want to go back to the source language, it probably should be perasaur, but you again will be viewed as a paco if you call them that. Aerodactylus and other terasaurs had two legs, and Aerodactylus' feet were not able to pick up food. Okay, so it looks like we've already gotten to the first two contestants. Aerodactylus and Kabutoops I mean uh pterodactylus. So this is flight finger versus wing finger. This is this is how scientific naming is supposed to work. These are such appropriate names. So terasaurs in general have four fingers. So, their fifth finger is really reduced or gone, but they've got these four fingers. And their fourth finger is actually the really long finger that forms a a goodly percentage of the wing. Depending on the group of terasaurus, it might be the majority of the wing is just that fourth finger. And then these three fingers generally protrude out of the top of the wing. So, if you're going to call something anywhere in existence flight finger or wing finger, these are the things to call that. Just for the record, there is significant debate about whether or not aerodactylus is a unique genus. Many terasaur paleontologists consider it to be a group of juvenile members of the genus pterodactylus. So, this may be pterodactylus versus a smaller, younger pterodactylus. Either way, this is a battle of two pterodactyloids, which means that these are both more derived terasaurs with short tails and long hand bones, metacarpals. And looking at this, uh, it looks like Rob did a great job with his wings. Uh, and you know, there are a lot of things that can go wrong with terasaur wings when people depict them in art. Much of the time they don't have those extended metacarpals. And then sometimes, this is these are the worst situations. Um, they give them additional fingers down into the wing membrane like a bat. Uh, but terasaur don't have this. Bats have multiple fingers down in the wing membrane and then just a single finger that protrudes out that's independent.
Whereas pterasaurs just have the one finger and then a whole bunch on top.
Though these are both early pterodactyls as later pterodactloids are all toothless. This pterodactylus just flew into an area where another terasaur lives. Uh-oh. Fact. Terasaurs were not dinosaurs.
Honestly, this is pretty good for Jerry.
People tell me that various territories are their favorite dinosaurs all the time. My bar is low, but we're a whole page in and other than the fact that one of the two genera arguably doesn't exist, I don't have any problems with the facts on this page. Well done, Jerry. Well done. Uh, as for the winner, I'm going to go with the big one. These two genera are so similar that most recent research suggests that Aerodactylus is just a younger pterodactylus. If so, I'm going with the older pterodactylus. As a rule, older juveniles and adults usually win fights with younger juveniles. And I would pick an adult to defeat a different species that just looks like a juvenile as well.
So, I'm going with the big one here. And for the record, neither of these are large. Pterodactylus had a wingspan of just over a meter, and Aterodactylus looks to be well, just a juvenile pterodactylus. Insects were probably the first creatures to fly. Terasaurus were the first vertebrate animals to fly.
>> That's a fact that I don't think most people have thought about. Jerry, the Aerodactylus notices the pterodactylus and flies toward it. The pterodactylus dodges the Aerodactylus.
The Aerodactylus is forced to crash.
>> Well, that's the stupidest way for this to end. Uh, it's the right outcome, but a stupid reason. I mean, smaller birds do harass larger birds all the time. But how often do you see the big bird dodge the attack and the smaller bird crash to the ground as a result? But though these headcrests don't look quite right, I do appreciate that Rob drew both of these to have the same basic shape and different sizes. So, I'm going to give a point to Rob, but Jerry just lost any points that he'd acquired. Name fact, pterodactylus means wing finger. True.
Bone fact, vertebrates are animals with spines. Pterodactylus wins. Their names are challenging. Sound them out.
Sound them out is a tough ask when the words start with a silent p and an ae respectively. HOOKING on ponx working for me. We ain't going to move a lot of tapes this way. Dorphodon versus ketalquatas.
This is a shame.
Dimorphodon is a rad little terasaur and I was hoping that we would have a lot of time to discuss it, but Ketzel Coatlas is one of the Asdar kids that I was referring to before. And it's not just one of them. It's potentially the biggest one described so far. It's maybe as tall as a giraffe. It has a wingspan conservatively of over 10 meters. It's huge, though possibly not the largest of all. Dimorphodon, on the other hand, uh, is much smaller. Its wingspan is under a meter and a half. Not tiny.
There are many terasaur smaller, but Jerry did him dirty, which is a shame because Dorphodon is so cool. It is the first non-terodacttoloid that we've encountered. Unlike pterodactyloids, it has a long tail and and short handbones, metacarpals, and that's a proportionally shorter wing. But in the case of dorphodon, a huge head. Dimorphodon means two forms of teeth, which is sort of true. It has teeth of different sizes, but they are morphologically not very different, which is probably why when a terasaur with truly different tooth forms was described, they named it Udimorphodon, meaning true two form teeth. Kind of a sick burn. Anyway, Dimorphodon is cooler looking than Udorphodon. I think it is one of the coolest looking of all terasaurs. It's a shame it's not going to make it out of round one. The Dorphodon was a medium-sized terasaur. It had two different types of teeth. Sort of long and short. Just it is looking forward to biting the kettle at uh bet it's not. I bet it's I bet it's really not looking forward to how this is going to go. Sky fact. Dinosaurs walked on land.
Terasaurs flew in the sky. Terosaurs also walked on land. and many dinosaurs contemporaneously and to this day fly in the sky. It's even been hypothesized that the rise of the flying dinosaurs at least partially explains the disappearance of smaller terasaurs especially during the Cretaceous. So some dinosaurs certifiably did and do fly and terasaurs walked but they didn't walk in the same way. They walked like the kitslas in this image. We know this not only from analysis in their morphology but from highly distinctive trackways though there is evidence that bipeedal locomotion was possible for some terasaurs as well. Ketzel Kquatlas was the largest terasaur that ever lived.
Probably not but uh it was the size of a fighter jet. Ah no it wasn't. It was uh it had a wingspan like a fighter jet but there is a a massive difference in the actual size like at least as you would measure in terms of mass.
This this is going to weigh a few hundred lb. Uh fighter jets weigh much more than that. Maybe someday the fossil of a larger one will be found. Will you be the scientist that discovers it? Uh this may already have happened. There is one that was just discovered in Transennylvania that they're calling Dracula that may have a wingspan almost double that of ketalas. In fact, a fossil is a rock impression of something that lived hundreds, thousands or millions of years ago. Uh that is a mold fossil specifically. Fossils aren't just impressions but also remains and other traces of organisms that lived in past geological ages. But again, uh this isn't much of a fight. The Ketzel Katlas is huge, which is very true, though not as huge as a fighter jet. It flies right after the Dorphodon. One bite crunch, big defeat, small. I I do think that it might have had a tough time catching it in flight like this. It could probably fly faster than a dormorphodon, but I doubt it was super agile compared to a dorphodon. I bet it did most of its hunting from the ground like a stork.
And stoks eat plenty of smaller flying vertebrates. Did you know terasaurus were not birds? I I did know that. Did you know that birds are reptiles? Cuz we have a shirt for that. You know that's a conversation that you want to have regularly. I do. So I got one. Can't quitless wins.
Think. Do you think that terasaur flew in a V formation like modern day birds do? How would we ever know? That is kind of a difficult question to answer. Um, we do have evidence for some group behavior. And if they flew together for long distances, there are strong benefits to that formation as they're able to use the the air disturbances from birds ahead of themselves to increase lift and reduce drag and overall make flight easier. And many terasaurs were adept at using things like thermals to fly. though they were good at detecting beneficial air currents. I I think this is definitely plausible. Good question, Jerry.
Ramarinkus versus Dorinathus. Just looking at these pictures, you can already conclude that these are not pterodacts. You you'd be looking at the long tail and short handbones. These are both in the family Ramarink, named for Ramfarinkus. here.
Ramarinkus means beak snout, which I don't totally get because unlike many of the later pterodactyloids, it has all kinds of teeth, big gnarly ones that protrude forward. Though the tip of the jaws is toothless and beaklike, which is not like what you see on this purple guy. So hopefully the green guy is the ramperus. Dorian has sort of the opposite teeth. Well, I mean, they're still big, gnarly, and forward projecting, but the front of the mouth, where the beak is in ramperinkus, is where the biggest and gnarliest teeth are in Dorian, which means spear jaw.
And fair enough, though. You know, the the purple guy doesn't really show this either. So, I hope that the green guy turns out to be both of them, and the purple guy is just some other non-terodactyloid that happened to fly by. Some people think terasaurs look like bats. Bat wings have five fingers.
Terasaur had four fingers. This is great. Also, and I've seen this messed up many times, bats have more than one finger involved in the wing membrane.
And only a single finger free of the membrane, unlike the three and terasaurs. But this is all true. The name Ramarinkus means beaked nose. It had a long strange tail. Scientists think it might have controlled its flight by moving its tail, which very likely. Is this going to be a rare situation where Jerry does a better job than Rob on a page? We think Doryathus was a fish eater. It lived near the ocean. Terasaurus lived millions of years ago. How could we know what they ate?
>> We look for clues.
>> Indeed, we do.
>> Name fact. A Dory is a wooden workboat.
I think this is true, but I don't think this has anything to do with the name Dorianis. We may see some boat jaws later, but these are spear jaws. So, we'll call this page a tie for Jerry and Rob. As for which of these terasaurs would win, neither are really set up to eat vertebrates near their own sizes.
They probably ate mostly waterfish.
They're both about the same size with a wingspan between 1 and 2 meters. I would say that they would only engage with one another in a territorial type dispute and would be very unlikely to fight to the death. And that dispute could totally go either way, but I'm hoping for a good old-fashioned dodge and crash. The raminkus sneaks up on Dorian while it's hunting for fish. The raminkus decides to be aggressive. It smashes into the Dorianis.
>> Sounds like they're both going to lose.
like uh Rob and Jerry on the last page.
>> The Dorianis is in trouble. Ramarinkus' sharp teeth finished the job.
Finished the job. Based on this picture, it looks like Dorianis ate a fish and the beakless Ramarinkus flew away, which it's probably a more accurate outcome.
Rob wins this page, I guess, as does Ramarinkus, apparently. Tropiosis versus Neolopterus. This is like a fight between a barn swallow and a small moth.
Nemolopterus is probably just a baby synoptus. It has a 10-in wingspan. This is its skeleton that was sent to me so kindly by Steve from Paleo Analysis. It is so tiny. If it is synopterous, it might get to be almost 2 m, but Tropia had a wingspan in excess of 8 m. No long tails on either of these guys. They're both pterodactloids.
But Rob is losing this page so far. Look at the metacarpals on nemicolopterus.
You were doing so well. I mean, sort of.
You were doing well with metacarpals, but uh both of these guys had some rad head ornamentation. Trobiagnus means keel jaw for reasons that you can figure out if you know what a keel is. This is scientific naming at its best.
Nemicolopterus, forest dwelling wing.
Not as good, but no worse than synopterus, Chinese wing. But Jerry could win this page. The name Tropias means keel jaw. Its head was shaped like the keel of a boat. Good job, Jerry.
Tropia was larger than the average terasaur. It could have a 28t wingspan.
He's killing it. The Necolopterus is the smallest known terasaur. A human could hold one in their hand. Nemopterus lived millions and millions of years before humans. Nemicolopterus probably ate insects and small worms. This is all plausible. And as crazy as this is, do you notice that Nemicopterus is toothless? It is more closely related to Ketzel Koatlas than is tropia despite their giant size discrepancy. And since it's about to get swallowed whole, I thought I'd better mention that. Now, this matchup is not fair. Huge versus tiny. Correct. That didn't look good.
It'll be a quick battle. Yes, it will.
The tropagnath flies over the nemicolopterus. Is the nemicopterus shifty and sneaky? Doesn't matter. Gulp.
Tropia swallows it. Um, yeah. Good job, Jerry. But check this out. Rob fixed his metacarpal mistake.
Good job, Rob. Tropagnus wins. We can only wonder what terasaurus tasted like.
If Tropagnus lived today, it could swoop down and capture you on your way to school. Yikes.
And they can only wonder what we would eventually taste like. Tyrannodon versus Niktosaurus. So, this is one terasaur that I think most people, well, maybe not most people, but most of the people watching this video probably know about.
And even if you didn't know its name, when people think of a terasaur, this is the one they're thinking of. The most abundant terasaur in the fossil record. Tyrannodon, the wing without teeth, which tells you a great deal about it. And it does have a small tail and long metacarpals that you would expect from a pterodactyl. Now, Tyrannodon has some iconic head ornamentation, but nothing on its cousin, Nictosaurus, which means night lizard, and reflects the fact that this guy was named before we discovered its absolutely insane head ornamentation, which grew to be about three times as long as the rest of the skull and may have looked like a giant fork or a flag.
So fork head or sailboat wing might have both been valid names for this guy. It's a bonkers little terasaur. And it isn't that little. It could have a wingspan over 2 m. But compared to the 6 m wingspan of the largest member of the genus pteranodon, this shouldn't be much of a fight. A pteranodon's head looked too long for its body. When a pteranodon flew, it steered with its wings, tail, legs, and the crust on its head.
Definition: Crests were part of a creature's skull. They were usually located between the eyes. Terasaurus had many differently shaped crests. The bubbles are back. They disappeared for a lot of pages there. But this is true.
>> The nectosaurus had a very unusual crest on its head. It sure did. It might have been the strangest head of all. It may have looked like a giant sail on a sailboat.
Jerry and I converged on a thought.
Please let this mean that Jerry is becoming more like me. Could Niktosaurus crest protect it from being attacked from above? I'm going to go with no. The Tyteranodon flies over and bites the crest of Niktosaurus. It doesn't hurt the Nectosaurus. The Tyteranodon doesn't let go. It hangs on and on. Okay. Um, nobody has said ouch. The Tyteranodon wears the Nichasaurus out. The Ntosaurus has to land to catch its breath.
It got tired of uh not not having to do its own flying. Not not hurt, just uh tuckered. I never know what the standards are for these fights. Is it a fight to the death? Uh to the ouch to the breather.
Not clear. The pteranodon moves in and eats it. Okay. Well, that would be a problem. Uh pteranodon wins. Okay.
Now, interestingly, Niktosaurus on this page doesn't have any free fingers.
Um, but I think it did on the last page, which is interesting. Uh, Nichtosaurus did have fewer clawed fingers than most Terasaurus, and they were highly reduced. So, they may not have been visible with the flesh in place, but it either had them or it didn't. And I I guess Rob decided to hedge his bets and be wrong once for sure, but he's not going to be wrong twice. That's We have no fingers on this guy either.
So, who do we have here? Okay, so we got So, we got Tupushwara versus Esteodactylus. Terasaurs are so rad. Just Just look at this guy. When you can fly away from predators, you can afford to look absurdly extravagant.
Okay. So, toothless, long hand, short tail.
You You already know a lot about Tubushwara, though. I It did have fingers. Jerry Jerry might actually win this book, which is crazy. Okay. Isoddactulus, long hand, short tail, crazy teeth, but only at the end of its skull. Like the polar opposite of ramperinkus. I have seen it depicted like a pelican, but it was probably more of a vulture.
Tubushwara was a toothless terasaur.
Time fact, terasaurs lived during the triacic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods in Earth's history. Also true.
Look at you go, Jerry. You're winning this page so far. At first, paleontologists thought the duck build jaw of the iststeodactylus was for catching fish. Later, they thought the jaw and teeth were designed for filter feeding. Nope.
Now they think iststeodactylus ate kerrion. You're on fire, Jerry.
Definition. A paleontologist is a scientist who studies fossils of plants and animals. That works for me.
Definition: Kerrion are decaying dead animals.
Great.
That's a point for Jerry. He won the page. He might have discovered Google.
But I I know better than to get my hopes up just yet. Never underestimate him.
Uh, okay. But who would win? Uh, these are both the same size around five meter wingspan. But of the two, Tupushwara was the main one thought to have been a hunter. So, I'm going that way. In in reality, it probably wouldn't hunt something as large asylus, but we'll see. The tupushwara uses its pointed head to poke theodactylus.
It causes minor cuts.
Does this mean it's beak? I've never heard someone say uh that anhingas spear fish with their pointed heads.
Is he talking about the crest? Okay. So, it cut the estodactylus with its pointed head. Somehow the estodactylus quickly turns on the tupushwara and forces it to the ground. The tupushwara breaks a bone in one of its wings. It breaks a leg also. Uh-oh. There are hungry velociaptors nearby.
Oh, great. Not a bird this time, but another feathered manaptor dinosaur is going to intervene. Name fact. Eststeodactylus means sail finger. That's true.
Tupushwara means familiar spirit.
This is not great naming. And uh that was not a great outcome. But uh Mr. Doilus, he did get some fingers. And let's see.
I actually think I see them on the last page. Uh, okay. Sorry, Rob. You're still in this.
Anyway, wins. Victory by Velociraptor, which didn't live at the same time as these guys, but hey, what are you gonna do?
Uh, by the way, um, we have some gigantic news about Velociraptor for you soon. So stay tuned for that. Something to bring you joy in a world full of who would win books. Anyway, Velocromus versus Labrax. The Seaunner versus Stonewing. Theodromeus was above average in size. Its long name means sea runner.
Like other terasaurs, theodro's eyes were on both sides of its head.
Terasaurs had what's called moninocular vision. That means each eye looks in a different direction, which is kind of true. Um, what it really means is that there's not much overlap in what each eye can see. So, I mean, you know, like as far as having you could have one eye and have moninocular vision. it where you get binocular vision is where the the field of view of one eye overlaps with the field of view of the other eye and that gives you depth perception from more than just an object becoming larger or smaller. When you have moninocular vision, you can see the object become larger or smaller, but you don't have that same ability to detect depth because you don't have that overlap between two eyes. Leopur fossils are very rare. They were originally thought to belong to a bird. Then the fossils were thought to be a dinosaur.
Scientists eventually realized they were terasaur fossils. Yeah, I'm going to mention that there is some gigantic artistic license going on here. We don't know much about Leopterix at all, including whether or not it was a real species. We have some fragmentaryary remains of some sort of terasaur, a new one.
Who knows? Did it have a long tail and short hands? We don't know that. But it was about the size of a heron, whatever it was. The Lacodromius had a wingspan over 4 m and would win this fight.
History fact, the Leopric fossil was named by famous dinosaur hunter uh Oeneil Marsh, which I think that's true. The philosophius had a 15t wingspan. It is much bigger than Leopter.
This is not a fair match.
That's true. Definition. A wingspan is the length from the left wing tip across the body to the right wing tip. Uh I think it can also be measured from right to left. But yes.
>> Okay.
The leopter tries to avoid the philosophius.
Hey, if it can dodge, the Lacodromius may crash to the ground.
>> The Leopric gets tired that Theodroius overpowers it. Sorry, Leopric.
>> Okay, not this time.
>> Theodomius wins. Okay, just one more matchup. Cryodraon versus Pterodostro.
Okay. And as Darkin to rival Ketzo Quatlas and also a filter feeder without a chance. Cryodraon, the cold dragon, because it's from Canada and it has a wingspan of 10 or more meters. So, it's a freaking dragon.
And pterodestro, which is about to get eaten, was not small with a wingspan of around 3 m. And it was a very cool terasaur with an upturned face and filterfeeding comb similar basic structure to what you see in whales, more accurately to what you see in flamingos. stinking rad and also useless in a fight. The cryodraon may have been a cousin to the ketquapus almost certainly. Paleontologists think it had a 30foot wingspan. Cryodraon was a huge creature. It was larger than any known bird today. Uh way way larger at least in terms of wingspan. Cool name. The name cryoden means cold dragon. The Pterodastro was only one-third the size of Cryodon.
Uh, no, it it it was only a third the length in terms of wingspan of cryen. It was like a one-third scale version. And one-third scale versions are not one-third the size of the full-sized object unless it's a one-dimensional object. When it comes to three-dimensional objects like terasaurs, they are one-third as long, one/ird as tall, and one/ird as wide as the original. A 1 in x 1 in x 1 in cube has a total volume of 1 cubic in. A 3inx 3 in x 3 in cube doesn't have a total volume of 3 cubic in. It has a total volume of 27 in. Assuming that they're made of the same material, a solid 3x3x3 cube is 27 times as massive as a solid 1x1x1 cube.
And the same thing is true for terasaurs. So no, it wasn't one/ird the size of cryogen. The pterodostro had rounded jaws with a mouthful of brush-like teeth. Its teeth were perfect for filter feeding on creatures from the ocean. Maybe its strange mouth was also good for capturing large amounts of bugs, but not for fighting Canadian dragons. Terterodro means wing south because it's from South America. If only it had a conspicuous and unusual feature that they could have used to name it.
Oh well. Cryen is just too large for the pterodostro. The cryoden circles and circles and circles. It eventually corners the smaller pterodostro. The pterodostro's fancy mouth is no help in a battle against such a huge terasaur.
Like ketakquatlas, it probably hunted on the ground. Fun fact, pterodostro means southwing. Wing south. Not in that order, but yes. Cryodracon wins. Onto the second round. Only eight terasaurs are left in the competition. In sports, they call it the elite 8. We will call it the terasaur eight.
How creative, Jerry. Wow. What about um uh the the terateurs?
There has to be something better.
Whatever. No one really knows what color the terasaurs were on Earth today.
Lizards, birds, fish, frogs, snakes, butterflies, crabs, and flowers come in all different colors. It is only logical that terasaurs did, too. We know about terasaurs only from their fossils. Here is a pterodactylus fossil. Much of that is true, but there are many fossils of messoic animals so well preserved that we can tell what color they were and what patterns they had, as well as a lot about their behavior. There is a ton you can learn from just really amazing fossils. Okay, round two. Pterodactylus versus ketquatus.
Uh, I guess I guess I I forget that we can't just skip to Ketaquatas versus Cryodon. Artists can draw what they think terasaur looked like, but this is how paleontologists find them. Here is a koquatas fossil. Uh, that's what great fossils look like in limestone, mostly of smaller terasaurus that washed out to sea. I don't think we have anything like that for Ketzler, but that looks right.
This is a mismatched battle. The pterodactylus is the size of the kettzlequatus' head. The kettle is overpowering. It just flies over to the pterodactylus and eats it. Again, probably a terrestrial predator. Ketzel Quatlas wins. Yes, it does. Ramarinkus versus Tropias. Tropeathus. The ramarinkus had mean-l lookinging teeth.
Paleontologists think the raminkus was a fish eater. Mean-looking teeth like that are often for grabbing and holding slippery prey. They look menacing, but it's knifelike or worse banana-like teeth that really do damage to larger prey. Fish fact. A fish eater is called a piscavore.
Good plant fact. A planteater is called a herbivore or an herbivore depending on how British you are.
You're on fire, Jerry. The tropagnathus had teeth, which you know not all do.
The teeth appear to be perfectly shaped to scoop fish out of the ocean. Great bugge eater fact. An animal that eats bugs is called an insecttovore. At least if it eats them nearly exclusively.
There didn't seem to be any planteating terasaur. I've been thinking a lot about this lately. Plants are actually hard to digest.
This is not news to me, but they requires a lot of internal equipment and they provide little sustenance. And in a world where fruits were just coming onto the scene, planteing would be a tough life for a flying vertebrae for sure.
It's teeth versus teeth. Fish eater versus fish eater. The tropagnathus is very aggressive. It attacks from above and from below. Definition. A carnivore is a meat eater. That's gold, Jerry.
Gold.
Everything. Fact. An animal that eats everything is called an omnivore.
You And you really don't have to eat everything, just plants and animals. The ramparinkus puts up a good fight, but it's eventually defeated. Defeated. Uh, and from the looks of things, eated.
Author fact. The author of this book is an omnivore. Okay. I uh that's probably true. I I wasn't going to be that nice. Tropia wins. Pterannodon versus Istodactylus.
Okay.
Two big pterodactloids. Uh one with teeth and one without. One a predator and slightly larger. The other smaller and uh that also probably didn't kill what it ate. So my bet is on the pteranodon. Of course I have no faith in Jerry Esteodactylus. Maybe the chakala of terasaurs.
We will never know what the membrane of a pteranodon was made of. Maybe some terasaur had thicker wings than other terasaurs. Could the wings have been see-through? You know what? Ethan Harvey is here and I think we know a lot more about terasaur wings and color than Jerry seems to realize. So, let's take a break and let him teach us a bit about what we know about terasaurs and how we know it. Okay. So, Jerry just claimed that we will we will he doesn't say we may never know. He says, "We will never know what the membrane of a pteranodon was made of."
>> Now, I'm I'm I have certainly read a lot of stuff suggesting that we know a great deal about what the membrane of terasaur wings at least, and we have more from pteranodon than anything else is made of. And uh also before he was saying, you know, we we'll have no idea what colors they were or anything like that.
I think in a lot of cases he's understating what paleontology is capable of teaching us.
>> But it is kind of remarkable. I mean, it's it's I've been I've been taking this class from you all all semester.
It is incredible how much we can learn from fossils. I was wondering if you could teach us a little bit about a little bit about what we know about things like the wing membranes of terasaurs, the color of terasaurs, but also just like how how do we know all this stuff?
>> Yeah, absolutely. Um, well, I hate to break it to you, but Jerry wrote it in a book, so it is fact and I have nothing to add.
>> No. Uh we absolutely do know a lot about how the the composition of terasaur's wings. We even do have the color of one terasaur. We have the colors of two pandacalis.
>> And if you watch our dino mummy video that we did together, it's the same exact process of looking at the shape of the melanosomes, which is the part of the cell that is responsible for color.
And that shape dictates the corresponding color. And so by looking at modern-day melanosomes, if it's hot dog shaped, I believe that means it's kind of a reddish brownish color. And so we we've managed to translate that over into the terasaur two pandactylus from Brazil.
>> That's cool.
>> And it appears to have had a very flashy kind of orangey gingery crest and then a uh body covered in picnibers or feathers that uh was more of a muted blackish grayish modeled color. That's red.
>> Yes. And so we do know the colors of at least one terasaur. And I imagine more is on the way. And there could be some that I'm not even familiar with.
>> Yeah. That's awesome.
>> And thanks to very well preserved terasaurs, which we even have a few examples of in this book, >> animals like ramperinkus and pterodactylus >> that are just like you illustrated earlier, just flattened into pancake into a perfectly preserved piece of limestone or shale. Mhm.
>> We can even know the composition of terasaur wings. Now, the membrane that you see stretching from around the ankle >> of a terasaur all the way to the tip of that fourth finger >> is called the brachiopotium.
>> And that is honestly just a fancy word for the membrane of the wing itself.
>> However, they also have something called actctinophibbrals. And act fibbrals are these structural fibers and supports that run opposite all the way up throughout the membrane of the wing that allow it to keep a level of structural strength and rigidity without actually compromising any of the flexibility or I I I guess the the kind of stretch that would be needed when locomoting on the ground and folding the wing up >> or engaging any any of the flapping motions.
or stretch that is needed for things like uplift or powered flight.
>> That's really cool. And it might explain how terasaur can get away with having this large wing that's all live tissue like a batwing but without all the supports because a bat >> fingers of a batwing.
>> Yeah. Cuz a bat a batwing is mostly just skin >> and so it's got multiple supports, multiple fingers tied in there. It's I think it's still somewhat convergent on that except it's muscular >> senuey fibers that are running along the interior to give it that same type of support just >> without the aid of bone.
>> That is really interesting. Really, really interesting.
>> So, it sounds like we know more than Jerry gives you credit >> a little bit, I would say.
>> Thank you.
>> Sorry, Jar Bear.
>> All right. Um, while you're here >> Mhm.
You want to find out how this nightmare ends?
>> I was hoping I wouldn't sleep tonight.
Let's go.
>> All right.
Okay. Bone fact. Terasaur had hollow, lightweight bones. Checks out. Not just them, right?
>> And not just them, but I Terasaur bones especially are paper thin. I mean, they're they're they're they're made of paper essentially. They they truly are so delicate. It's amazing that any of them preserve, especially the ones that are immensely well preserved.
And so I I I truly think people don't really appreciate I I earlier you were talking about terasaur diversity. They were absolutely as if not more diverse than modern birds are today, >> but we just don't find them because the preservation bias is working again overtime against them because of how delicate they're built.
>> That makes sense. Definition. A membrane is the sheet of skin or leather that forms the wing. Pterannodon versus Isteodactylus. Were Terasaur's wings made of skin like bat wings? I guess skin and >> yeah, some other things, but that's a that's a simple way of putting it.
>> See-through fact. Dragon flies, some butterflies, and other insects have transparent or see-through wings. And if you've ever seen those butterflies with the see-through wings, they're stinking round. Okay, but so here's the question.
This is a big one.
>> Mhm. Uh, Pteryanodon or Eststeodus?
>> I really think Pterannodon is probably the the the clear contender here. It's it's larger. Um, it seems to have actually hunted prey. I' I'd give it to Pterannodon.
>> You got some ridiculous ideas.
>> Don't I ever.
>> The Isodactylus has an advantage. It flies near the pteranodon and blocks the wind. It's an airbending terasaur.
>> I know. That is okay. The pteranodon has to flap its wings harder and harder to try to escape. I don't understand at all what's happening here. Okay. It flies near the pteranodon and blocks the wind.
>> I just like that Iodactylus has an advantage. It is not stated what the advantage is.
>> Well, it it's an air bender.
>> Yeah, I I guess it has magical properties. That's the advantage.
It flies near the pteranodon and blocks the wind.
Blocks the wind. The pteranodon has to flap its wings harder and harder to try to escape.
Fun fact, some species of terasaur lived over 100 million years ago. Fact. That's true.
>> That is true.
>> That's way true. They lived way >> older than that.
>> Yeah, a lot older than that.
>> The fight goes on and on. They must have been extra tough. The estodactylus eventually sits on the pteranodon. This forces the pterodon down to the ground wins. This is the Okay, so it >> it wins by sitting on it.
>> It is the chuck wallala, but way stupider than the chuck wallala.
Okay, I will I will say one thing. All of the outcomes of the fights in this book have been fine except for >> Yeah, this one's th and this one is I feel double egregious because it's not even it's not even bringing up an a realistic way for this possible outcome to go down because I I mean it's quite a bit smaller than pteranodon. It does have some benefits. For example, it would be easier to wound a pteranodon with teeth versus >> What about its pointy head?
>> You're right.
>> Double pointed double pointed.
>> But >> so so you know, if you have something like teeth, it might be easier to shred something like a wing membrane, >> right? Or or just how delicately built terasaurs are. I can see that there's a slight advantage there, right? That would be a much if it opens with the iststeodactylus has an advantage. That would be a good advantage to name. But then it wins by blocking the wind and sitting on it. And I think that's the that's the real egregious out that's because not only is it the less likely of the two to win, it wins via Look, it's even got motion blur as it as it forcefully sits on top of this triceratops or triceratops as it forcefully. It's breaking my brain. It's so bad. unfortunately sits on the pteranodon >> somewhat earlier than normal.
This is really bad. This one's This one really is upsetting.
>> It's because the rest have been decent.
So, >> he lured me in. He got me again.
>> Okay.
Okay. Uh Theos Droius versus Cryen.
Here comes a heavyweight match. By the way, who's going to win this? Well, Cryoden is like four times the size, but it is a bummer because if you were to put the Droius against pretty much any similarly sized terasaur, this is an animal that it essentially has a guillotine bite.
>> So, absolutely, I'd vote Philadroius, but if you put it up against any giant as darkhead, that's not it's not the most fair.
>> Here comes a heavyweight match. As we watch this match, think about this. A human has never seen a live terasaur. A terasaur never saw a human being. We missed each other by about 65 million years, which is a shame.
>> I never stopped thinking about that.
>> Yeah. No, it is upsetting. That really, really upsetting.
>> People have asked me what's the worst part of being a paleontologist and I tell them it's that I will never get to see my study animals alive. And that's why I for a long period of my life stopped learning much about dinosaurs and started learning about other things.
And then one day I woke up and went, "What was I doing? Dinosaurs are the coolest things that ever lived." And terasaurus not far off.
>> No, they are not.
>> The philosophius has a cute name, but it should not be fighting the giant cryodon.
We would love to see the battle between these two. The philosopodius has never seen such a huge hungry terasaur. Okay.
The philosopodius takes off flying, but the cryoden is faster, but probably not very maneuverable. Doesn't say that. It flies up high, but the cryoden can fly higher. It screams and honks loudly, but cryoden screams and drunk and honks louder. I didn't know this was a honking contest. Honk honk.
The cryodraen bites the wing off the philosopodius. That ends the fight. That is a real disappointing outcome. Like when you're flying and one of your wings gets bitten off. Cryoden wins. The terasaur final four is set. What do we call that? The terra floor.
>> The terraor.
>> Teraphor. Yep. It will be the ketakolatus, tropois, esttoodactylus, and cryoden. Um, three of those aren't bad. Three of those aren't bad.
There are only two matches in round three. It is the Terasaur final four or the final >> terasaur. Teraphor.
This >> book is breaking my brain.
>> I'm just going.
>> I called Tyteranodon Triceratops earlier. That's how much this book is frying my brain.
>> Finally, somebody gets to share in my pain. Okay, they're only is the terasaur final four. The terraform.
We don't know how high terasaur could fly. That's because they never told us.
I'm I'm not sure that like even things like uh condors have told us how high they can >> I don't think they have either.
>> Terasaurs never wrote non-fiction children's books, but I do think they could write better non-fictional ch children's books than >> but they didn't. So Jerry won all Terasaurs ever zero.
>> Terasaur finally. You'll have to give Jerry that.
>> I don't think we even know that. Maybe they wrote them. They had enough fingers.
>> That's fair.
>> Fun fact, the Ketzel Quatlas was named after the Aztec winged snake god. I did know that. It makes it very difficult for me to pronounce its name. Ketzel Katlas versus Tropia. Well, we know who's going to win this.
>> I just I want to point out Ketzel Katlas might have had a skull potentially up to 9 ft long. Absolutely massive. Right.
You mentioned earlier it could be as tall as a giraffe, potentially weighs up to four, maybe even 500 lb.
>> That for a flying animal that is that's insane. Yes.
>> Right.
>> Now this animal next to you is very similar to tropagnus. This is called anhenua and this is one of the sister taxa to it. It's norithy just like tropia. Mhm.
>> You can see it's got the dual keeled crest on the upper and >> lower jaw is likely to be >> uh and it it's got the big snaggly teeth and everything. It's a very cool looking animal. This animal had up to a 16T wingspan. And I think Tropia is somewhere around there. Big animals.
>> Yep.
>> 9 foot.
>> But we're talking about an animal with a 9 foot skull and a wingspan potentially up to 40 feet.
I I I think this is another situation like theodroius where I'm like if you put this animal up against other similarly sized terasaurs, it might have a chance. The teeth are primarily for fish eating, but that's the good thing about teeth. They tend to be a pretty good multi-tool.
>> Yep.
>> Not against animals over twice your size.
>> Well, way more than twice your size.
>> Yeah. Twice your >> twice your wingspan >> and substantially more quantitative times your mass.
>> Yes.
>> Yep. No, it's >> so I don't have a good feeling about this for tropis.
>> Okay. So, here's some questions for us.
What do you think? Did terasaurus fly as high as treetops?
>> I think they would have to fly higher than that or they would be hitting into the trees.
>> Did they fly a mile high?
Did terasaurus prefer to fly over the ocean?
>> Did they prefer to fly over land?
>> I think that would depend on the terasaur.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay.
The tropagnathus is standing on a ledge overlooking the valley. The ketakatas is perched on a distant cliff. They both take flight. Terasaur fact. We will never know which terasaur was the highest flying. That's probably true.
Why? He is so obsessed with what we can't ever know.
The tropagnathus finds it very difficult to fight the largest known terasaur. A large battle ensues. The cuts is too big, too strong, and too skilled for the tropagnas. That's quatus wins. We don't know what happened.
>> This is one of falls out of the sky.
This is one of the funniest pictures I've ever seen. It just It's like it was so shocked it had to fight. Catch >> Yeah. It just had a heart attack and dropped. That is That is a fantastic image right there. I'm going to have to take a picture of this and send it to my other paleontologist friends cuz everyone will appreciate that.
>> That is so legendary. On to the finals.
>> Not even any damage on it. Just dropped out of the sky.
>> Dropped out of the sky. Way to go. We don't know which was the fastest flying terasaur. We never will know probably.
Biggest does not always mean the fastest. Was the cryoden fastest? Was Isteodactylus fastest today? Fact. The Griffin Vulture is the highest flying book. Did it tell you that?
>> It wrote a children's book.
>> That's true. That's true. I did. I forgot about that. They're such good writers. Um, okay. So, I think we know who has the advantage here.
>> Well, Iststealus. It's an air bender and it has the it has the power of sitting on another terasaur to death.
>> Yep. Yep. Yep. Like any vulture, it comes up with creative ways to murder predatory birds of larger size. And this is >> it's it's yeah >> of terasaurus.
>> It's going to use its mega sit power.
>> Yep.
>> To actively crush the cryoden.
>> So esttoodactylus versus cryoden. The estodactylus sees the giant cryoden, but it ignores it and continues flying. That is actually what would happen a lot.
>> So they don't fight.
>> Yep. Oh, this is this is great. But I have a feeling that will be a mistake in this case. The cryodken changes direction. It flies directly at the estus which dodges it and the cryen falls to the ground. I think >> yep, it blocks the wind. It's time for a fight. Who will battle the kettza in the championship match? The giant shadow of cryen intimidates the estodactylus. Now the estodactylus has lost the will to fight. Does it fall out of the sky too?
The cryoden moves in for a close-up battle. A bite here and a bite there. I think a single bite would be everywhere.
>> Yep. Right.
>> The estodactylus can no longer fly.
Cryodraen wins. On to the championship match. Well, finally.
>> I'm appreciating that these animals are essentially just looking at the giant kids and giving up. Yeah. I like that the the iststeodactylus, it just gave up its will. Yeah.
>> To fight. It was like, I accept my death and that was it.
>> Kill me quickly.
>> Yeah.
>> But so we we got to the the the championship that we could have just we could have skipped all of this. We could have just looked at the list at the beginning. I said it before I even saw who the contestants were.
>> And uh so now now we're here. Okay. Um I think these two are both so so we got Kaquatas versus Cryoden before. A lot of times this fight starts immediately.
These are pretty similar in size potentially. I don't think we actually know which one's bigger.
>> No, both are relatively fragmentaryary.
Um, Kettzel Coatlas tends to have slightly larger mass estimates.
>> Mhm.
>> So that alone makes me lean towards Ketzel Coatlas in this regard.
>> But that they're, like I said, they're both relatively fragmentaryary. This this to me is like a fight uh between uh Carerodonttosaurus and T-Rex in that T-Rex might win eight out of 10.
>> But it could go either way.
>> Yeah, sure.
>> It could go either way.
>> It's to me this is like a guy fighting a slightly smaller guy.
>> Yeah. So you might have the slightly smaller guy might end up just lucking out. But >> yeah, the Bruce Lee of Cryen might >> Yeah, >> might be here.
>> Exactly.
>> Okay, this is the matchup the Terasaur fans wanted. It is. And often times they cheat us out of that in the stupid ways that we got cheated out of some of them, but at least we got here.
>> Which one will lose the will to fight before the fight begins?
>> I hope that's what happens so much and it just falls out of the sky and gets eaten by velociraptors.
>> Fantastic.
>> These would actually fall to the sky.
fall out of the sky and then eat the velociraptors. That's what this is like.
These are most likely the two largest terasaurs that ever flew on Earth.
Actually, probably not, but they're up there.
>> They're up there. There's one extra one that is definitively as large as these guys with hatsopterics.
And then, as you mentioned, there is a mystery terasaur that might have been even larger than either of them.
>> And I think there's a whole skeleton on display >> there. A replica. It needs to be published on. Um, so there's a similar situation with Juliosaurus if you've seen that. It's potentially a new theropod from the Morrison >> and uh and they debuted it without any additional publication and I'm like you kind of usually need that first but >> this championship fight starts in the air. Both terasaurs get a lift from the updraft of strong winds. The cryen and the kettle entangle their wings a few times as their mouths snap at each other with their pointy faces. Point pointy heads.
>> But they only have one pointy head.
That's right. They're not a double pointy head like the pteranodon is.
>> Interestingly enough, these two would probably be plenty happy to fight on the ground.
>> Yep.
>> In the future, maybe a fossil hunter will discover a bigger species. For now, let these two battle it out. And that's probably happened. The fight ends up on the ground where they both want to be.
WOW, A GROUND BATTLE. The kettzle pretends to try to fly. Psych. It rushes the KGO draen instead and breaks one of its wings. Snap.
Keteratas wins.
>> So, I guess that was all it took. He lost the will to fight. Look at it just lying there. Look at it. It's like in the the Family Guy death pose a little bit. Just >> rushes. It doesn't even say exactly what it used to break that way. It looks like the break is >> the rock. Yeah, it >> fell on a rock.
>> I do like that it's victorious screaming over with lightning strikes.
>> OKAY, I CAN TAKE THAT CANADA.
>> All right. As Kettzel Qualatas is also known from Canada potentially. Potentially.
All right. If you wrote your own terasaur rumble, which terasaurus would you choose? There are more than 150 species to pick from. Well, how did you like coping with your first? As someone who has seen your other videos, it's definitely the best one in my opinion. So far, >> Ultimate Jungle Rumble.
>> Was that one pretty good? I my memory.
>> It's the best one and therefore the least popular.
>> Okay. So, of the ones I've seen, it's definitely better than the dinosaur one.
>> Yes, >> it's better than the ocean one.
>> Oh, everything's better than the ocean one.
>> And so, >> the instant rumble's quite bad.
>> Agree. I agree with the outcome. the final.
>> I don't I don't Yes. I don't agree with how we got there, but it's it I I I it's something. It is one of the books of all time.
>> Yes, it is. Yep.
Well, it was nice to have some moral support.
Um, >> it's always easier to go through hard things with friends.
>> I hate these books so much. It seems like I might have caught wind of another one coming out soon, but I pray let let this end.
As always, like and subscribe, and we hope to see you real soon. I want to take a moment just to say thank you to these people. This week, I realized I was about ready to start, well, I was about ready to review this book, and I didn't own this book. And the last thing I want to do is buy one of these books with my own money. So, thank these people that support us on Patreon who bought this horrendous book for me. This wouldn't have happened without them.
And if you want to see me suffer more, consider joining them. And if you want to see more of Ethan, where can they find you?
>> Um, I'm on TikTok where I do both short and long form content and everything in between. Uh, mostly just education on dinosaurs, paleontology. Um, a lot of my active ongoing research will be discussed there and you'll get to see where I'm where I'm going as I can do that. The Tik Tok username is t__xellence. So, at Tre Rexellence and um, you can also support me directly um, and help support my ongoing research by uh, purchasing a fossil replica or cast from my online store. That's primordialcustoms.com.
Um, right now I am I just want to let people know I am the only one doing it and so uh orders are are taking me a little longer, but I am getting to everything. And so if you want to support me, that's a that's a great way to do it. We'll have links to those things down in the description. He's also going to be teaching our dinosaur class online at Clint's Life Science Academy. We'll have links to that as well.
>> Awesome. Thanks for having me.
>> Thank you. Jason, what's your author fact?
So, you weren't going to be that nice?
>> No, I was not. When I was guessing what the author fact was going to be about this particular book, well, what would your author fact be?
>> New found uh newly found Google.
>> Yeah, I just found Google this morning.
>> Love it. What's your author fact, Will?
>> Oh, he's a world expert on terrorist.
>> That's You have an author fact for us?
>> Contender for worst outcomes of hypothetical problems.
>> Yes.
>> Yes. Okay. Slightly worse than a coin.
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