Posture, Locomotion, and Paleoecology of Pterosaurs

Abstract

Posture, Locomotion, and Paleoecology of Pterosaurs. Sankar Chatterjee and R. J. Templin. 2004. The Geological Society of America, Special Paper 376, Boulder, Colorado, 64 + iv p. ISBN 0-8137-2376-0; Evolution and Palaeobiology of Pterosaurs. 2003. Eric Buffetaut and Jean-Michel Mazin, eds. Geological Society, London, Special Publications 217, London, 347 p. ISBN 1-8623-9143-2. In the past year, two books about pterosaurs have been published: Posture, Locomotion, and Paleoecology of Pterosaurs by Chatterjee and Templin and Evolution and Palaeobiology of Pterosaurs edited by Buffetaut and Mazin. Although both books include broad coverage of the present knowledge of pterosaurs, they are very different in approach and not equally successful. Chatterjee and Templin's work suffers from a split personality. It was clearly written by two people with different styles, who seem not to have been able to decide whether it was intended as a general review of pterosaurs and their literature or as a new contribution to our understanding of pterosaur flight. The majority of the book is a general review of pterosaurs that is rather muddled and often omits recent contributions. The authors suggest that there is little agreement among pterosaur workers on even the smallest details; however, a general consensus on almost all topics has been forged by pterosaur workers in a recent series of workshops and symposia, and while there are dissenters on most subjects, the extent of agreement is remarkable. The book includes various inaccuracies and inconsistencies. For example, the term pterodactyl is used in a number of places to refer to all pterodactyloids when it properly refers only to members of the genus Pterodactylus ; pterosaurs are described as quadrupedal knuckle walkers whereas knuckle walking properly refers to walking on flexed proximal interphalangeal joints of the manus and pterosaurs walked with their metacarpophalangeal joints hyperextended and the palmar surfaces …