WWD2020: Peteinosaurus zambelliiNext up from Episode 1: New Blood, we have Peteinosaurus, one of the

WWD2020: Peteinosaurus zambelliiNext up from Episode 1: New Blood, we have Peteinosaurus, one of the earliest-known pterosaurs!General:Peteinosaurus was poorly known when WWD was made, and it’s poorly known now, so there’s not much to say about Peteinosaurus specifically, but our understanding of pterosaurs as a whole has changed a lot since 1999, particularly with how upright and agile they were on the ground. However, the WWD Peteinosaurus is pretty good for its time, and mostly holds up today in terms of its posture and energetic behaviour.AnatomyThe WWD Peteinosaurus is pretty good from what I can tell! While most of the head of the fossil is missing, it’s likely a dimorphodontid, which makes the rounded head of the WWD version fairly likely. One interesting anatomical detail that all WWD pterosaurs share is that way that the wings fold up. In WWD, the pterosaurs’ wings fold outwards, away from the body, which makes this awkward fold in the wing membrane parallel to the surface they’re walking on. Turns out, this was actually mechanically impossible for pterosaur wings, since the joint of the wing finger bends backwards, the same as a knee joint. This allowed the wings to be tucked much closer to the body, and also got rid of that awkward fold in the membrane, freeing the legs up to be more efficient on the ground.Skin/ColourationOne of the other big differences in the redesign is that my version is fully floofed out. Pterosaurs were known to have filamentous integument, known as ‘pycnofibres’, at the time that WWD was made, and you can actually see some very short fuzz on the Peteinosaurus head puppet! (Not sure what those head bumps are but no reason it couldn’t have them I guess) I, on the other hand, have made the executive decision to AMP UP THE FLOOF because it’s a small, warm-blooded, probably highly active animal, and those things need energy conservation.I think this is the first WWD animal so far that I haven’t been a huge fan of in terms of colours and patterns? Nothing against them really, I just don’t find them as interesting or exciting as the previous few, but I still kept them as faithful in the redesign as I could!Geographical/Temporal Weirdness Alert!Just like Plateosaurus before it, Peteinosaurus is another European animal slapped into America where it doesn’t belong, this time from Italy. It’s at the right time, just a very, very long way away, especially for a small thing not adapted to long-distance flight. In 1999, however, there were no known pterosaur fossils from Triassic North America, so Peteinosaurus got yoinked instead.However, unlike in the case of Plateosaurus, there is a recently-discovered pterosaur that would fit perfectly, Caelestiventus hanseni! Described in 2018, Caelestiventus is about twice the size of the very small Peteinosaurus, and more closely related to Dimorphodon. It has a rather unusual set of teeth, and may not have been the insect-eater that Peteinosaurus is shown as, but it would make a very nice replacement in a more geologically-accurate WWD. (Art by Scott Reid @drawingwithdinosaurs​, map modified from the Palaeobiology Database) -- source link

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