PALEOWORLD: Evolutions Mysteries - Part 3

  1. 60 million years before the first birds Pterosaurs took to the air. Dr. Chris Bennet works the fossil chalk beds of the Niobrera Sea in western Kansas. The sea reached from North Dakota south to northern Mexico. The sea existed @ 85 million years ago.
  2. Pterodactyl species varied in size. The largest has wingspans of @ 20 feet. They soared above the water hunting fish as many sea birds do today. Over the last 125 years about 1,100 fossils have been found.
  3. In 1870 famed paleontologist O. C. Marsh discovered the first specimen of Pteranodon.
  4. Pterosaur evolution came in two waves: tailed forms and non-tailed forms. The tailed primitive forms were Ramphorynchoids and the non-tailed forms were the Pterodactyloids. The first forms lasted @ 50 million years. The last group developed @ 180 million years ago.
  5. Dr. H. G. Seely of Cambridge University wrote Dragons of the Air in which he argued the point that they were warm blooded. His ideas were largely ignored.
  6. Dr. Robert Bakker thinks that because of their muscular structure and the requirements for powerful flight that they were warm blooded and intelligent. Dr. Kevin Padien of the University of California at Berkeley says that they had very strong hollow bones. This made them very light
    weight.
  7. Dr. Kevin Patien says that due to the structure of the hind legs that they walked much like birds.
  8. The largest species had huge head crests often longer than the body. These were perhaps used for steering in the air.
  9. In 1972 in Big Bend National Park in souther Texas a fossil wing of the largest species ever found was excavated. The species Quetzaquatalus northropi. It had a 39 foot wingspread. In 1985 an aeronautical engineer Dr. Paul MacRaty built a flying model of this species.
  10. It is argued that the large size of the last species was a possible cause of their extinction.
  11. About a million years ago in caves in Asia our early ancestors struggled for survival. They were both predators and prey. Saber Toothed Cats existed at the same time.
  12. At the time most of southern Asia was tropical rain forest. The most famous fossils have been found near Beijing (Peking), China in the Chokotien (Dragon Bone Hill) Cave.
  13. In 1891 Dr. Eugene Dubois found the first fossils of what he called Java Man, Homo erectus. His ideas were rejected and he stored the fossils under the floor boards of his house. In 1936 he was visited by Dr. Ralph von Kernigsvald who took the fossils for study. He went back to Java and found another site. It took five years of work to unearth the next near complete skeleton.
  14. In the 1920's and 1930's Dr. Franz Videnreich tried to take a series of fossils to the USA from China. These were destroyed during the outbreak of the second World War. He had made casts
    and these came to the US for study.
  15. Fossil skeleton of teenage boy found on the shore of Lake Turkana in Kenya, Africa in 1984 by
    paleontologist Kamoya Kanu.
  16. In 1994 discoveries were made in China. These are being studied by Dr. Russell Shohan. As layers in their cave shows that they used fire. Stone tools were also found. Many fossils are now being found in Asia that predate the African finds. These bring up questions as to where the origins of early man actually are. It had been assumed that they originated in Africa. Now science is not sure.
  17. Dr. Milford Walpov of the University of Michigan and Dr. Allen Thorn of the Australian National University argue for the Asian origin theory.