D. M. S. Watson's notes on Pterosaurs

Abstract

This is a collection of notes, drawings and calculations made by D. M. S. Watson on pterosaurs. None of the work is dated with the year, but some notes have been made on the back of examination timetables for 1929. The most striking item is a general essay on pterosaurs. This is not complete but shows clearly that Watson thought of pterosaurs in a way similar to our own. We chose to study Pteranodon because, as a large flying animal, its design would be dependent to a great extent on aerodynamic demands; and that these would show up clearly in the structure. Watson puts forward this concept very plainly, writing: ‘Flying animals live a life so difficult in many ways, in the actual flight, in take-off and landing, in feeding and in the production and rearing of their young, that they are necessarily highly efficient mechanisms, and their structure must conform to rigid and to a great extent determinable limits.’ It is these limits we have tried to determine for Pteranodon , and we fully agree with Watson as he continues ‘the pterodactyl gives us a unique opportunity of testing our powers of interpretation of an animal’s structure in terms of function, because, owing to the urgent need of economizing weight, we can be sure that very little of the skeleton can be without definite and important function’. Watson concludes the introduction to his essay by mentioning that ‘any investigation of a pterodactyl must begin by an attempt to reconstruct the anim al’. This has been exactly our own approach.