Sentences with phrase «pterosaur wings»

Colin Palmer, a graduate student at the University of Bristol, arrived at this conclusion by employing his expertise as a turbine engineer to carry out first - of - a kind tests on models of pterosaur wings in a wind tunnel.

Pterosaur wings were good for gliding but were also maneuverable because of a special shoulder joint.

Now, Palmer's wind tunnel tests with models of the pterosaur wing are a second chapter to this story, filling out the full picture for how these reptiles used their unique limbs to stay in the air.

His results showed that the pterosaur wing was very sensitive to thermal lifts.

Not exact matches

An example of convergent evolution is the similar nature of the flight / wings of insects, birds, pterosaurs, and bats.

The team compared the thickness of the bones» walls and their resistance to torsion — a twisting force that birds» wings withstand during flapping flight — with similar bones from several dinosaurs, flying reptiles called pterosaurs and modern birds.

Pterosaurs, «winged lizards,» often referred to as «pterodactyls» were flying reptiles of the clade Pterosauria.

These teeth became entangled with the tough fibres, or aktinofibrils, that reinforced the wing membranes of the pterosaur, Rhamphorhynchus muensteri.

The fish leaped out of the water and grabbed the pterosaur by its left wing as it was flying.

Pterosaurs took this tendency to the extreme, and the result was enormous wings and very low wing loading.

The aspiring pilot has the help of Tennessee engineer Jim Cunningham, who has been studying two fossil pterosaurs to figure out just how their wings worked.

Now one aeronaut is looking to the ancient leathery - winged pterosaur in hopes of becoming the pilot of the world's first successful ornithopter.

The first known pterosaur egg reveals a well - developed embryonic skeleton, com - plete with wing membranes and skin impressions.

Pterosaurs walked on all four limbs, and Habib has developed an anatomical model to explore how they might have launched themselves using their small hind limbs and larger «arms» which formed part of their wings.

Witton and Habib say that wings of the giant pterosaurs were so powerful that the vaulting mechanism could have launched them from a small clearing without the need for a «runway» or a cliff to leap from.

Larger pterosaurs might have stalled by simply holding their wings against the airflow.

That's because the pterosaur used its wings to «stall» as birds do, says the team, so that the animal's body swung up from a horizontal flight position to near vertical, enabling it to land gently on its hind feet.

According to his analysis, published in the European journal Zitteliana, pterosaurs folded their wings so they could act as arms and then used all four limbs to shove themselves aloft.

Fossilized footprints indicate that pterosaurs walked on all fours, using their feet and the hands on their wings.

Launching on four legs, the pterosaur would have flapped its wings till it caught these small pockets of warm air rising from ocean or hot land, and then coasted easily on these for several hours.

Pterosaurs were among the earliest vertebrates to steadily flap their wings to power their flying.

The pterosaur had a crested head that looked like a butterfly's wing.

Pterosaurs had three fingers dangling from the middle of each wing; when the animals landed, they left widely splayed marks.

This may explain why pterosaurs» wings widened as they evolved — to help navigate land environments.

According to scientists, pterosaurs had an extraordinary adaptation to flight, including pneumatic bones to lighten its weight, and an elongated finger supporting a wing membrane.

The newfound species, Caiuajara dobruskii, belongs to an ancient order of winged creatures known as pterosaurs.

Pterosaurs («winged lizards») hold a special place in the history of life on Earth: They were the first creatures, other than insects, to successfully populate the skies.

There is persuasive evidence (e.g., optimal wing loading design for pterosaurs, etc.) that the atmosphere was once 2 - 4X as dense.